The Nomad
by little ninja of awesome
Summary: My story doesn't start the way most girl's stories do. It doesn't start with a knight in shining armor coming to rescue me or being angry at my parents for not letting me date a bad boy. No, my story starts in a much more…unique…way and this is just the beginning.
1. Book 1: Water: Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: It pains me, but I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender, there I said it, I only own my OC.**

**A/N: I know what some of you may be thinking 'What about 'Olympic Heroes'?' Don't worry, I'm only posting this because I have a good amount of chapters stockpiled so I can update regularly while still trying to update Olympic Heroes more regularly. So, this is my second fanfic, and my first one for Avatar: The Last Airbender. It starts before the series, a year before the series to be exact, but only certain events from that year are going to be written out before I start in on the actual series storyline. Oh, and the intro is the only part that is ever in 1****st**** person and it's in my OC's POV. Sorry if anyone is OOC.**

**"Don't be over self-confident with your first impressions of people." **

**– Chinese Proverb**

My story doesn't start the way most girl's stories do. It doesn't start with a knight in shining armor coming to rescue me or being angry at my parents for not letting me date a bad boy. No, my story starts in a much more…unique…way and this is just the beginning.

Zuko stared out at the small Earth Kingdom town they were docked at. He hated wasting any time in his search for the Avatar. He had been searching for him for a year now and still nothing, not one sign that he was alive, much less still exists; Zuko was starting to become slightly desperate. His eyes scanned the harbor idly, not really paying attention, that is, until he saw a girl about his age. Admittedly, she had first caught his attention because she was pretty; give him a break he was a teenage boy who had been at sea with a crew made of only men for the last year. However, those thoughts were soon lost in the back of his mind when he saw her _waterbend_ the water from a pump into her water pouch. 'What's a waterbender doing in the Earth Kingdom? Could she be the Avatar?'**(A/N: I did say he was desperate)** He thought as his eyes continued to follow the girl across the harbor. The girl was clearly a prepared traveler, for she wore a pack on her back, the aforementioned water pouch at her hip, and she had what looked like a sword strapped to her back underneath the pack.

A group of boys were playing ball moderately close to the water and as she passed them their ball went rolling quickly towards her and the water. 'OK,' Zuko thought, 'if she waterbends to somehow give the kids their ball back or she does nothing then I'll forget I ever saw her and continue on my search for the Avatar.' However, just as he thought this she earthbended a sort of curving ramp that caught the ball and sent it rolling back to the kids who waved and thanked her.

That did it. "Prepare the rhinos!" He yelled to any of his crew that heard him. There was a possibility, however small, that this girl was somehow the Avatar and he wasn't going to let her escape him; he had to regain his honor. She was headed down a path into the woods and he set off after her with his crew members when two of them came up to him, both riding Komodo Rhinos, with one for him between them. "Let's go; we are after the Avatar." He informed them as he headed down the gangplank.

Naomi glanced to the side as she rounded a corner in the forest path. She had known those Fire Nation soldiers had been following her, it was what she had been trained for after all; she had just been trying to get them away from any civilians and to figure out what rank the one in front was before she fought them. His helmet was different than the others; if he was someone as highly trained as an admiral she might be in trouble. She looked again as she rounded another corner and saw a burn scar on his face stretching over his left eye. 'The banished prince! What was his name again? Whatever, it's probably not going to be important in the long run. He can't be that much of a challenge; he's probably around my age and I doubt he's had as much fighting training as I have; a lifetimes worth for someone my age. At least that explains why they're tailing me all the way out here when the rhinos could've overtaken me like ten minutes ago. They think I could be the Avatar and don't want to risk causing a scene.' As she continued walking she saw a large rock just off the forest path. 'I could have a little fun with this before I take them out,' she mused. She stepped up onto the rock, threw her arms out wide, lifted her face to the sky, and waited. She hadn't been standing long when she felt the Komodo Rhino's steps and heard them stop.

"Lovely day isn't it?" She said turning her head around to look at her pursuers. "Have you ever just reached up to feel the wind on your face or stopped and appreciated the earth?" As she said this last word she struck her foot on the ground causing the earth to shake beneath the Fire Nation Natives.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Attack her!" The prince yelled at his soldiers. They both ran towards Naomi and she jumped off the rock to meet the faster of the two. Before his partner could catch up to them she brought a circular wall of earth up around them, cutting them off from the other two firebenders. Naomi and the soldier circled each other and as he punched, fire coming out of his fist, she bended the water out of her water pouch to divert his attack and then went on to hit him in the chest with it, pushing him backwards. She then bent up two large rocks from the earth and aimed them at the soldier. One hit his legs and the other his chest and neck area. He fell to the ground and she walked up calmly and struck him over the head with the hilt of her broadswords, which she had unsheathed as he was falling. Once she was sure he was unconscious she pulled the walls back into the earth and prepared to face the second soldier. She fought him much the same as the first, all the common soldiers seemed to fight similarly, though she lost some of her water to evaporation from their fire blasts. Finally it was just her and the prince. She didn't bother putting up any earth walls; none of his allies would be waking up any time soon to help him. He charged at her, fire spurting from his fists to form daggers. She brought her remaining water up to defend herself, but the fire in his hands simply evaporated it; there wasn't enough to withstand the heat.

"Hey! I was using that!" She exclaimed as she dodged his next swipe. She brought a large rock up and punched it towards him. He jumped over it and started kicking fire at her. She brought up a wall of rock to defend herself, but he just ran around and continued his attack. She pulled her broadswords out of the sheath and tried deflecting the fire he was throwing her way with them. It worked to an extent until he shot a much larger blast of fire at her. The swords deflected most of the fire but the force of the blow sent her falling backwards into a tree and made her hit her head, dazing her. The prince stalked up to her and, grabbing her swords, tied her hands behind her back and set her on his Komodo Rhino. The soldiers were waking up, she must have overestimated how hard she had hit them, and they headed back to the ship, her cursing her cockiness before the battle.

"There you are Prince Zuko, I was wondering what you had gotten yourself int- who is this?" an old man who was sitting on the deck with some kind of game and a pot of tea asked when they arrived at the ship, noticing Naomi tied and held between Zuko's two soldiers.

"This, Uncle Iroh, is the Avatar."

"You know, I keep telling you that I'm not the Avatar, but do you listen? No, you just ignore what I'm saying and continue your conversation like I never said anything." Naomi retorted from behind Zuko. She had been telling him the same thing since she had regained her senses as they were riding back to the ship and she realized she was in serious trouble.

"Prince Zuko, not to disappoint you, but the sages tell us that the Avatar is the last airbender, not a young Earth Kingdom girl." Iroh commented, unlike Zuko, he paid attention to what Naomi was saying.

"True, but she is able to bend two of the elements, coincidentally the first two that the Avatar would have to learn if they were born into the next nation in the cycle after the Air Nomads; water and earth." Zuko replied, completely convinced that this girl was the one who could give him back his honor.

"Fine if you are so insistent, nephew, why don't we put her in a holding cell and perform a test so we can determine if she really is the Avatar?" Iroh asked Zuko, not wanting him to get his hopes up.

Zuko nodded and motioned the guards to take her down to a holding cell below deck. Naomi went willingly, if not grudgingly, thinking that once their test results came up negative they would let her go. 'I mean, how many times can I be wrong in one day, right?' she thought as she was taken away from the light of the sun and towards the depressing cells.

"I don't understand! You can bend two elements, how can you not be the Avatar?" Zuko fumed when they had finished the test and it had told him and Iroh that Naomi was not in fact the Avatar.

"Look, I don't really know how I can bend more than one element, but I can and your test has told you that I'm not the Avatar so if you would just let me go…" She let her sentence hang off, hoping they would get the message.

Iroh moved to unlock the door of Naomi's cell but Zuko stuck his arm out in front of him. "Wait, I'll make you a deal, I still have your swords and your water pouch, if I find the Avatar or capture him in a year, I'll let you go and you can have all your stuff back."

"And if you don't find him?" Naomi asked, her interest slightly peaked, despite the warning bells going off in her head.

"Then I take you to the Fire Nation and pass you off as the Avatar to my father. You can still have your stuff back and then you have to hold your own." Zuko replied evenly, obviously thinking his deal was too good for her to refuse. Unfortunately for her, he was right, her broadswords meant the world to her for personal reasons and while she could live without her water pouch, she would have trouble finding a new, quality one in the Earth Kingdom.

"Fine, we have a deal," She said, almost regretting it when she saw the eerie smile creep onto the prince's face. 'He clearly needs to learn to smile more' she thought as he walked towards the upper decks. She was about to try and find a comfortable position in her cell when she noticed that the prince's uncle was still there. "Was there something you wanted?" She asked, not bothering to be polite considering her situation.

"I simply wanted to know what you would have us call you, since my nephew seems to have overlooked that detail." Iroh said kindly, not at all put off by her tone; he was used to dealing with Zuko after all.

"Naomi," she answered shortly.

"Well, I am General Iroh, but you may simply call me Iroh if you prefer, and the young man you just made a deal with is my nephew, Prince Zuko." Iroh said before walking out of her cell and closing the door behind him.

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**So, what do you guys think? Did I do OK? Please review, no flames please.**

**Oh and here's a summary of what Naomi looks like, it's also on my profile.**

**Season one:**

**Clothes: Dark blue leggings and cut-off shirt (cuts of at same place as Ty Lee's) with elbow length sleeves, light green Earth Kingdom style tunic with dark green trim (ends at her mid-thigh). Light brown, knee high boots with dark brown accents (Water Tribe style), blue wrappings around her wrists and Earth Kingdom style belt around waist.**

**Hair: Black, in a high ponytail, tied with a blue hair tie.**

**Eyes: sea-green.**

**Skin Tone: Earth Kingdom skin tone.**

**Season two: Pending**

**Season three (pt. 1): Pending**

**Season three (pt. 2): Pending**


	2. Book 1: Water: Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Nope, no owners here, I would check with Bryke though, they know who owns it. (Here's a hint: they do).**

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**"People who come from dysfunctional families are not destined for a dysfunctional life." **

**-Bo Bennett**

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When Naomi woke up the next morning she saw that someone had placed a bowl of rice and a peach in her cell for breakfast. 'How did they not wake me up, the soldiers wear all that loud armor? Well that can't be good, even if I'm not technically in danger, I can't let my guard down; I'm on a Fire Nation ship for spirit's sake.' She thought as she got off her cot-like bed and started to eat the offered breakfast. She spent most of the day in her cell alone, practicing parts of her workout routine, stretching, kicking, punching, and such, even some of her bending forms, without bending of course, she wasn't good enough at waterbending to be able to bend water she couldn't see, not effectively anyway. That is, until Iroh came down to her cell in what she estimated to be the midafternoon. He came in holding a pot of tea and two cups. She was in the middle of a kick when he opened the door; luckily she wasn't kicking in that direction.

She put her leg down and turned to face Iroh fully, "Yes..." She said, it wasn't really a statement or a question; it was just out there for interpretation. Iroh seemed to interpret it was a question.

"I just thought you might like some tea, to help calm the nerves since this must be a confusing situation for you." He said kindly, setting the tea up and striking a fire beneath the pot with his firebending.

"I don't need any calming tea." She said turning her back to him to continue her workout.

Iroh laughed, "You sound just like my nephew. If you don't need the tea for calming purposes then perhaps simply for the taste, it is ready after all." He gestured to the hissing tea pot, he must have made it before he got to her cell.

Naomi sighed, clearly he wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. "Fine," she walked the few steps over to him and took the offered cup of tea, sitting down opposite the old man. "I made my choice, I know what I've gotten into, and I'm not confused about it." She explained, feeling the need to justify some of her previous rudeness to this oddly kind Fire Nation general, he just seemed so genuine.

"It is fine," He assured her, "but, I do wonder why you were so willing to possibly give up your freedom simply for a sword and a water pouch."

"It's a long story," she sighed.

"Well, we have a whole pot of tea to tell it over. Just start at the beginning" Iroh said, encouraging her to continue. She did, Iroh had a way about him that made a person immediately okay with confiding in him, she decided it was because he didn't look dangerous like most firebenders she'd encountered.

"The water pouch isn't that important to me, I just didn't want to have to scour the Earth Kingdom looking for another durable one. The broadswords are the reason I agreed. You see in my family everyone, even the benders, learn how to effectively use one type of weapon and when they've mastered it we go to a blacksmith, a family friend, and have it made specifically for that person. You need to understand that my family are nomads, we travelled around the Earth Kingdom fighting Fire Nation soldiers and helping village people fight them off, if only for a little while. Well, the weapons that I learned and mastered were broadswords, they were my choice and I learned with a pair we got from a retired Earth Kingdom soldier. When I was eleven we went to the blacksmith and he crafted me those swords, they were literally made for me." She looked down at her cup of tea, not wanting to look Iroh in the face.

"So you agreed to stay on this ship for a year and possibly get turned into the Fire Lord, because of the link those swords have to your family?"

"Yeah, the good times with my family." She said hollowly.

"Where is your family?" He asked. Her head shot up, she hadn't been expecting that, usually when people saw she travelled alone they thought her family was dead and didn't ask, thinking it would hurt her. For a moment she considered telling him they were, but she had a feeling she would feel extremely guilty for lying to him.

"I don't know; I ran away when I turned fourteen."

"Why?"

"That hasn't been a family since I was six. I was sick of it and I was finally old enough that people wouldn't wonder too much why I was travelling alone." She said. Sometimes she would regret leaving, but she would always end up thinking about why she had left in the first place and then she would remember that she had made the best choice for her, though that didn't change the bad memories that came with it. "Can we stop talking about this?"

"Of course," Iroh replied. They talked some more until the tea was gone and then Iroh left. This was their routine for the next week. Naomi would wake up and train or meditate and in the afternoon, Iroh would come in and they would talk about her family and life as a nomad until she got uncomfortable, then they would talk about Iroh.

"Naomi," Iroh started one day, "I was wondering if you had ever given any thought to how you can bend both earth and water."

She looked at him, surprised, "Well, not really, but we could talk about that if you wanted to."

"Thank you, I would very much like to discuss your dual bending, it perplexes me. Were your parents' benders?"

"Um, yeah my dad was an earthbender and mom was a waterbender. They both trained me in their respective elements."

"Well, bending is given to a person in part from their genetics and in part from their spiritual capability. If one or more of a child's parents were benders then there is a greater chance that they will be as well. While people who have non-bending parents can become benders it is because they have the spiritual capability needed to bend as well as the genetics of that given nation. I think your case is something similar. You have the genes for both water and earthbending in you DNA and you must have a spiritual capability that is much higher than most people because if you had a normal capability for spiritual things, even if you had both types of bending in your blood, you would most likely only be an earthbender, since that is the more dominant of the two bending styles. However, this is just my guess, I could be terribly wrong."

"Huh, that actually makes sense. It sounded a bit like gibberish for a second there with the genetics talk, but that's pretty logical, Iroh. Nice to know I'm not a complete freak of nature. Well, assuming you're right, which you probably are." She smiled.

Iroh laughed. "Thank you, but to my knowledge you are unique in you bending abilities, save for the Avatar."

Naomi became somber again, "Do you actually think he'll find him?"

Iroh sighed; he knew who she was talking about, "Honestly I do not know. Zuko believes he will find him because he needs to believe that he can, but at this point I think it is a fool's errand only meant to keep him busy and prevent him from embarrassing his family. Even though he has more honor than all of them combined."

Naomi raised an eyebrow at him; she didn't know much about Zuko's family, "His family is that messed up? Huh, I guess we had more in common than I thought. But, if they're that bad why does he want to deliver one of the only things they want in this world directly to them?"

"Zuko believes that capturing the Avatar will restore his honor to him. He places a lot of stock in honor and doesn't seem to realize that it is not something someone else can give you; you have to give it to yourself, you have to have earned it in your own eyes. And, until he understands that, I do not think he will ever stop looking for the Avatar, or regain his honor." Iroh got up then, they had finished the tea. "I will see you tomorrow Naomi," and he walked out of her cell, leaving her to her thoughts.

* * *

Zuko looked up as Iroh walked into his room. "Zuko we need to talk,"

"About what Uncle?" Zuko asked, less frustrated due to the fact that he had been meditating before Iroh had come in.

"Naomi."

"Who?" he asked genuinely confused; he didn't think he knew anyone named Naomi.

"The girl you have locked up in a cell below deck."

"Oh, well, what about her?"

"She has agreed to stay on the ship Zuko. There is no reason to keep her locked up in a cell anymore. I have talked to her and she is not the type of girl who will stay healthy if she is locked up indefinitely, she is used to being able to move around at will." Iroh told him, slightly angry with his nephew for treating her like a prisoner when she had agreed to cooperate with them.

"So, what do you expect me to do about it?"

"There are empty rooms at a normal level on the ship; rooms that are not like a cell, I suggest you let her have one of them. I would also suggest letting her go on the deck and around the rest of the ship to get some fresh air."

Zuko looked at his uncle, "Uncle, if I let her out on the deck alone, there's no guarantee she won't try to escape."

"Zuko, she agreed to stay on the ship; she won't risk running unless she gets her possessions back. However, if it will make you feel better, I will accompany her around the ship until you feel more comfortable and can trust her there alone." Iroh replied, he had expected Zuko to come to that conclusion and had prepared a solution before talking to him about this.

Zuko sighed, "Fine, Uncle, if you are so set on this, we will try it, but if it doesn't work I will put her back in the cell." Iroh just nodded as he walked out of Zuko's room. 'Now to get them to interact with each other; they could both use a friend their age.'

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**Reviewers:**

** .Uchicha: Well, thank you very much.**

**Reviews are greatly appreciated, even if you're just going to tell me you hate it, tell me why, I could use the constructive critisism.**


	3. Book 1: Water: Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: If I owned A: TLA it never would have ended.**

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**"Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting." **

**-Napoleon Hill**

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Naomi took a deep breath. It was nice to smell air that didn't have the slight tint of metal to it, only the smell of the ocean and…was that smoke? She opened her eyes and looked around the deck to find Zuko practicing firebending forms. He actually wasn't bad looking when he wasn't planning her delivery to the Fire Lord or sulking about not finding the Avatar, she noticed idly, despite the scar. She turned back as Iroh walked up the stairs behind her.

"Thank you for convincing Zuko to let me, you know, come out here."

"It is not a problem Naomi; there was no reason for you to stay in that cell for the duration of your stay here."

She laughed, "You say that like I'm an honored guest and I'm here on vacation or something." Iroh laughed along with her. Their laughter caught Zuko's attention.

"Hey, trying to practice here, so if you could keep it down, thank you."

This just made Naomi laugh even more. "No worries, Prince, I'm just going to meditate over here." She walked over to a corner of the ship where Zuko wasn't training and sat down in a meditative position with her legs crossed and her fists together. Iroh walked over to Zuko to oversee his training. Naomi took a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth; she was calming herself to focus on her meditation and not the yelling of the Fire Prince at the other end of the ship. She had been sitting there for about twenty minutes when a particularly loud outburst from Zuko broke her concentration. She opened one eye and looked at the scene in front of her. Zuko was yelling at his uncle that he was ready to move on to the next set of firebending moves and Iroh was calmly telling him that he needed more practice. She shook her head at Zuko's stubbornness and closed her eyes again, losing herself in her meditation. Not fifteen minutes later, she opened her eyes to Zuko's yelling, again.

"If quiet is so important to your practicing then why do you get to yell?" She shouted over to Zuko and Iroh.

Zuko looked over at her, a retort likely on his tongue, when Iroh stood up and said, "She is right, Prince Zuko, I think you should join her in meditation, to clear your head and help you to learn about the virtue of quiet."

"What?!" Both teens exclaimed, but Iroh just motioned for Zuko to join Naomi and left the deck. He sat next to her, grumbling about it the whole time.

"Look, I don't like it any more than you do, but if you're going to do this, you need to be quiet." She closed her eyes again tuning out everything except her breathing. She heard Zuko huff next to her, but gradually his breathing quieted and slowed. They stayed this way for Spirit's know how long before Iroh came to continue with Zuko's training.

With her newfound, albeit limited, freedom, Naomi would go onto the deck with Iroh every day when he would train Zuko. Most days she would meditate and Iroh would sometimes have Zuko join her, however, today she was practicing some of her bending and fighting forms, still not bending, though it was to her frustration. When Zuko's lesson ended he came over to watch what she was doing.

"Did you need something?" she asked, moving into the next form.

"What are you doing?" He ignored her question, asking one of his own.

"Practicing my forms, just because I can't bend doesn't mean I'm going to let myself get out of practice."

"But you weren't doing bending forms earlier." He pointed out.

"How long were you watching me?" She asked, stepping out of her position to face him fully.

Again he ignored her question with one of his own, "What were you doing before your bending forms?"

"Fighting forms," she replied, again slipping into another stance.

"Why?"

She sighed; clearly he wasn't going to just let her do her training. She stepped out of the stance again and looked at him, "In case I ever end up in a situation where my bending isn't helpful or isn't an option."

"Oh, um makes sense, I guess." She could tell he didn't really see the point of it.

"Yeah, but it's only just going through the steps without a sparring partner." She looked at him, getting an idea.

"Uh-huh…" Zuko said, starting to get nervous with her shift in tone.

"Would you spar with me, you know, you firebending while I fight without bending? It would be good practice for both of us, plus I want a rematch and it could help you convince Iroh to teach you the next set of firebending forms, everybody wins."

Zuko sighed, similarly to how she had just a minute before, in defeat. "Fine," And they walked over to the center of the deck, taking their preferred fighting stances. As they started fighting, Zuko had to admit she knew what she was doing. She fought without her bending as if she had the elements at her disposal, which made her pretty good at hand-to-hand combat, what with earthbending being mainly about punches and kicks. Her moves were concentrated and concise; she wasted the least amount of movement as possible. He didn't doubt she would have beaten him had he not been firebending.

In the same way, Naomi noticed Zuko's bending style more than she had been able to during their first fight. He was improving from what she had seen of his training as well. His firebending was less erratic and more purposeful. He was focusing more on where he wanted the fire to go instead of if he was angry that it hadn't gone where he wanted, although he still had a long way to go before he would be a master. As she was wrapped in these thoughts she dodged a fire blast that would have hit her in the stomach, but another one came at her quicker than she had been expecting it and she raised her right arm to block herself out of instinct. The next thing she knew she had fallen onto the deck and her arm was burning white hot. She clutched it to her as Zuko came rushing over.

"Naomi, are you alright?" He didn't know he had burned her, only that she had fallen. Then he saw her arm. "Oh, Agni, I'm so sorry, I-I didn't mean-"

"Zuko," she cut him off, jerking her head up to look at him, "I'll be fine, just help me find Iroh, he'll have medicine or something to treat burns." Zuko nodded as he helped her stand up and they made their way to the bridge of the ship, Iroh was probably playing Pai Sho up there.

"Uncle, we need your help!" Zuko said the moment they got through the door.

"Zuko," Iroh said, slowly turning around from his game, "I'm sure that whatever you two were fighting abou- come with me." Iroh had also seen Naomi's arm and walked past the teenagers, gesturing for them to follow him.

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Naomi hissed when the water first touched her burn. They were in Iroh's room and he had set a bowl of cold water in front of her telling her to soak her arm in it while he found what else he needed. The water stung the burned flesh at first, but Naomi knew it would help and stuck it out, and it paid off for the stinging stopped not long after she put her forearm in the bowl. Zuko stood against the wall near the door, observing, brooding, she wasn't really sure. Iroh came back to where Naomi was sitting and set down what looked like a jar of ointment or cream of some sort.

"OK, I think you can take your arm out now." He told her. She complied and he softly dried it off with a towel, she still winced where it touched her burn though. He then took the ointment and spread it on the burn, and finished by wrapping her forearm in bandages. "You will need to change the bandages probably twice a day and replace the ointment at the same time." He said handing her the jar and a bundle of bandages. She nodded her understanding and told them she was going to go to her room and not to expect her out and about for a while.

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For the next three weeks her normal routine now had the added action of changing her bandages twice a day. She was surprised at how little damage her arm seemed to have taken, given the size of the fire blast, she supposed the wrappings she had on must have helped protect her arms. Although, she had gotten fairly bored not being able to spar, she even asked Iroh if he had anything she could do; more specifically, something she could use to draw.

"Do you know if there is any extra paper and some charcoal on the ship?"

"Why do you want charcoal?" Iroh asked her, confused.

"To draw with. I used to do that a lot before I was allowed to fight the Fire Nation soldiers with my family. I got bored just waiting around for them to come back and there was always a heavy supply of charcoal wherever we had camped out."

"Aah, well, I'm sure we can find some lying around."

"Thank you Iroh." So, in her boredom she had started drawing the places they stopped or the people on the ship, like Iroh, and she would have drawn Zuko too, had he not been avoiding her. She finally got fed up with his not making eye contact with her or leaving a room whenever she came in and asked Iroh if he knew why Zuko was acting so strangely.

"My nephew blames himself for your burn and thinks that you would be better off should you not interact with him." Iroh told her over his cup of tea.

"That's ridiculous, _I_ asked him to spar with me and it's not like he's going to burn me again just by talking to me, besides, you're the only person on this ship aside from him that I actually have intelligent, at least somewhat lengthy conversations with, the soldiers are afraid if they talk to me they'll piss Zuko off." She exclaimed heatedly.

"Yes, I have tried to tell him similar things, but he will not listen. I think the only way he will recognize these facts is if he heard them from you."

"You know what? You're right, I'm going to find him and give him a piece of my mind." She stalked out of the room to find Zuko. Her first instinct was to check his room but since she didn't know where that was she checked the deck instead, and her first instinct would have been wrong for here he was on the deck, just staring moodily out at the ocean. "Zuko!" she called when she spotted him. He turned around and, seeing that it was her, his eyes widened. "Why do you refuse to talk to me?" She demanded.

"I burned you." Was all he answered before turning back to face the open ocean. She caught his arm before he had turned all the way and spun him back around to face her.

"That's not an excuse." She crossed her arms, waiting for a proper explanation.

"Well, that's the only one I have so you'll have to accept it." He replied, with some of his usual fire **(A/N: I swear no pun intended) **back in his voice.

"See," she said, "you talked to me, and, look, I'm not burned." She finished, extending her arms as if to prove her point. He grabbed her still wrapped right arm and brought it in front of her face.

"You may not be now, but I still burned you, I don't want to risk hurting you, or anyone else, like that again." He dropped her arm.

"Zuko," she sighed, understanding what he'd meant by grabbing her arm, "I'm not burned anymore, I just wear the wrappings to hide my arm guards, which I should have been wearing when we were sparring, but I forgot to put them on that morning." She removed the wrappings and her arm guard to show him the healed, if not a little paler, skin on her arm. "If I had been less careless, I wouldn't have gotten burned, it's not your fault, not really, you were just trying to fight as well as you could and you bested me, again I might add. If you couldn't control yourself enough not to hurt people you don't mean to, I think we all would have figured it out by now."

"You can't blame yourself for something that couldn't have happened had I been more attentive to the fact that you're not a firebender." He returned.

"_I'm_ aware that I'm not a firebender, I knew what I was getting into by sparring with you, but fine, you know what, we're both to blame, and it looks like we both suffered from it so can we just put it behind us and move on with our weird sorta-captor-sorta-prisoner relationship thing?"

"Fine, but we are never sparring again."

"What if it's just sparring, no bending involved, you can't burn me if you don't firebend and I would still be keeping to our deal. Come on, Zuko, please." She really wanted to beat him at least once in a fight, well, she wanted it enough to beg. Zuko just nodded and she pulled him out to the middle of the deck. "You sure you can handle not fighting with your bending Prince?" She taunted him, wanting him to actually fight her because he wanted to, not just to humor her.

"You'd be surprised how well I can fight in hand-to-hand combat, Nomad." He replied evenly.

Naomi got into a fighting stance and was about to make the first move when she registered the name he'd called her. "'Nomad' seriously, that's the best nickname you could come up with?" She didn't get an answer because he had already brought his foot up to hit her in the stomach, forcing her to dodge, and quickly coming at her again with a punch towards the shoulder. She smiled as she sent her own attack his way, this was the Zuko she knew and preferred, and she was going to win, no matter how many fights it took.

* * *

**Reviewers:**

** .Uchicha: Thank you, hope you liked this chapter too.**

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**F1nal Front1er: Glad you like it. Thanks, that was what I was going for with her character.**


	4. Book 1: Water: Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I am not the owner of anything in this story except for Naomi.**

** "Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience."**

**-Unknown**

* * *

Naomi was enjoying this. Zuko had finally agreed to let her go around the ship alone, no chaperone needed. She was currently walking out to the deck to clear her head. She had been having trouble sleeping and decided some fresh air would do her good. When she got to the top of the steps, she looked up at the clear sky to see the stars. That was one thing she loved about being out on the ocean, there was nothing but clouds to block the view of the stars, not much smoke, depending on whether or not Zuko was training, no trees, and no buildings. However, she heard a slicing sound and turned her head back to the deck. 'Well, that's strange,' She saw Zuko, practicing with broadswords, not hers she saw with relief, in the middle of the night, with horrible form. She watched for a couple more minutes before deciding she couldn't let this go on; Zuko's movements were jerky and he moved the swords like they were typical, separate swords.

She sighed and stepped farther onto the deck, "This is painful, Zuko, you're doing it all wrong." He turned to face her, a look of surprise on his face.

"Naomi, what are you doing out here?"

She shrugged, "Couldn't sleep, now do you want some help with those swords or do you want to learn how to use them improperly?"

"Well what would you suggest?" She raised an eyebrow at his willingness to listen, but offered up her advice none the less.

"First off, you're holding them all wrong." She moved forward and placed her hands on the hilts of the swords, "Don't worry, I'm just adjusting your grip," She said, seeing the look on his face, "You can't hold it like you would a normal sword, you have to hold them like equals. Now show me how you were using them before." She stepped back and he started stabbing with the swords. "Okay, okay, no, they aren't typical swords, they're…well, think of them as one and the same and use them that way. Move them in tandem with each other, like they're connected." Zuko tried again, and again she corrected him, finally he gave up.

"Ugh, I just don't get this. How can you fight with them, it's not natural to move swords like that."

"Look, if you would let me show you how to use them instead of just telling you, you would improve a lot faster."

"No, it's late and I don't want-"

"You don't want to risk giving me a weapon unless you know someone else would be around to help you should I try and fight my way off the ship, right?" She smirked knowingly. He gave her a sheepish look. "How about we continue this tomorrow instead of sparring, so you can feel okay with me using the swords?" He nodded in agreement and they went their separate ways to get some sleep before their next day began.

* * *

At the usual time they sparred, Naomi walked up to the deck again, ready to continue their lesson. Zuko was waiting for her. "Okay, how do you do this?" He passed the swords to her warily; still not sure it was the best choice.

"Oh, calm down, if I was going to hurt you I would have done it a long time ago." She took the swords from him and started showing him how to use them, explaining as she went. She spun her way across the deck, swinging the swords on separate sides of her body, almost never having them on the same side unless it was necessary. "Broadswords are about equality, one sword is no more powerful than the other and you can't treat either like it is. If you move one, you should be moving the other to maintain the balance." She handed him the swords again and he tried to copy what she had done. They continued on like this for about an hour, her showing him how it was done and explaining what she thought he needed explained and him copying her movements and applying her advice. "Zuko, you're not going to master them from just one day of using them. Nothing's that simple. No matter how hard you try, it'll take time." Zuko nodded, but knowing him, he would hear her and not listen. "I'll help you more tomorrow, okay?" When he nodded his consent she walked back to her room to catch up on some more sleep.

Before she collapsed on her bed to rest, she noticed the jar of ointment and the roll of bandages Iroh had given her when she was still treating her wound, 'I should give these back to him' she thought and grabbed the medical items and walked in the direction she knew Iroh's room to be. Since she and Zuko had started talking again she had made it her personal mission to learn where his and Iroh's rooms were since they were the only ones on the ship she really talked to. She knocked on the door and waited to hear an affirmative answer before opening it and stepping inside. "Iroh, I just wanted to drop these off, I figured you'd need them eventually." She held the objects towards him.

"No, Naomi, you should keep them, you never know when you might need them, especially since you plan on fighting firebenders again once you leave this ship for good."

"Thank you, Iroh. Even if I don't need them, and I seriously hope I don't, I appreciate the fact that you care enough to let me keep them should I need them." She nodded to him and went back to her room. Before she went to sleep, she placed the ointment and bandages in her bag,which she had only gotten back when it had been checked for weapons or anything else that could help her escape, 'As if I would leave without my broadswords.' She continued thinking about how ridiculous Zuko was about keeping her on the ship as she fell asleep.

* * *

"Naomi, Naomi, wake up." Someone was shaking her and she was getting annoyed. She grumbled and turned her head further into her pillow hoping that the mystery person would go away.

They didn't.

All that happened was the mystery person chuckled and continued to shake her until she gave up on going back to sleep and she turned and opened her eyes. She nearly yelled in surprise. Zuko was standing over her and their faces were uncomfortably close. She pushed him away and he chuckled again.

"What's got you in such a good mood, Flame Head?" She questioned as she sat up and got out of bed.

"Nothing, just in a good mood." He started walking out her door, gesturing for her to follow; she did. "Did you know you snore in your sleep?" He smirked over his shoulder as he walked ahead of her. So that was it, he got to tease her.

"What, I do not!" She ran to catch up with him.

"I heard you, you do."

"Ugh, whatever, where are we going anyway?" She asked, refusing to fight about something she was sure was false.

"Uncle wanted me to get you because he said you shouldn't go an entire day without food and tea."

"Let me guess, he said tea first and thought about it before he said food, right?"

Zuko laughed, "You know him almost as well as I do." Naomi joined his laughter, even though she was a bit suspicious of his recent elatedness, he hadn't even been annoyed at her calling him 'Flame Head'. By this time they had reached the room where Zuko, Iroh, Naomi, and sometimes the lieutenant, ate. They walked in to see Iroh pouring three cups of tea.

"Ah, Naomi, it's good to see you up and awake."

"How long was I asleep?" She asked as she sat down next to Iroh.

"About six hours, I think." Zuko answered her question instead.

"Well did you at least practice some more with the broadswords while I was asleep?"

"No, I figured if I didn't have someone to tell me what I was doing wrong there was no point."

"Hey! I did more than just tell you what you did wrong!" She exclaimed, putting down her tea cup. "Besides, if you don't practice, with a teacher or not, you're never going to get any better."

"I'm already not getting better; I don't think neglecting to practice for a couple of hours after already practicing within the day is going to hurt me that much."

"Zuko," she sighed, "you won't get better without practice. Like the saying says 'Practice makes perfect.' If you don't practice, nothing is going to happen, no matter how much you sulk about it. In fact you'll probably get worse."

"I don't sulk!"

"Yes, you do, denying it is just going to be embarrassing." She replied calmly; Iroh nodded his head next to her.

"Whatever, if practice is so important, then will you help me with it tomorrow?"

Naomi raised her eyebrows; Zuko was actually asking her to help him, in those words and everything? "Sure, but you can't complain if you don't get it perfectly right away, alright?"

"No problem."

"By the way, you never told me why you wanted to learn to use broadswords so bad." That had been nagging her in the back of her head since she saw him using them the night before.

"I just figured you had the right idea, knowing how to fight without bending, eventually there's probably going to be some situation where I can't use mine. Broadswords just seemed like a good thing to learn as a substitute." She nodded and they both went back to their meals. Iroh looked between to two of them.

"When did you two start getting along?"

Naomi gave Zuko a 'you-want-to-take-that-one' gesture. He sighed and shrugged "I don't know; we just did."

"Don't worry, Iroh, I'm sure we'll be fighting about something by tomorrow." Naomi assured him because she, like him, was a little wary of the newly improved relationship between her and Zuko.

"We don't fight that much!" Zuko exclaimed.

Naomi smirked, "Yes we do, Zuko, we just started a fight over how much we fight. I think my point has been proven." Iroh laughed and Zuko even cracked a small smile. Naomi looked at her two dinner companions and smiled as well. 'Maybe this isn't such a bad situation to be in after all, I just needed to wait it out.'

* * *

**Hey just a request, if you guys have any advice about my writing or comments about the story or vice versa, let me know, I'm trying to improve my writing.**

**Reviewers:**

**Spiderninjapirate22: Thanks, I'm glad you like it and Naomi. (P.S. I love your name).**

**Chocolate Orchids: Thanks so much. Yeah I wasn't sure about another way to say that without it being really choppy and unIroh-like so I just went with it. And it's totally okay I ****_want_**** your feedback about the story.**

**Princess of Olympus: Thanks. I'm actually glad you only said it was not bad, I don't know it just makes it feel like much less pressure for the next chapters to be awesome (though I still hope it is) if that makes any sense. (I just searched avatar the last airbender and I think it was a picture I cropped but I'm not sure.**


	5. Book 1: Water: Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender**

**A/N: So this starts the actual series storyline. I'm really only going to tell it from points of view that are relevant to Naomi, so only where she is involved or thought about a lot. Also, I may skip some episodes or group more than one together in a chapter because of the lack of such scenes. This is probably only going to happen during the first season though.**

* * *

**"Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, it must be accepted."**

**-Unknown**

* * *

Naomi sighed; Zuko was staring out at the ice caps surrounding them in the waters near the Southern Water Tribe. They had been in these waters for weeks now and had seen no real sign of the Avatar, just like every other place they had been. The only things they had seen were the celestial lights and as she looked up, she saw what she assumed to be another one. Zuko thought different every time they saw them though, and this time was no exception. "Finally," she heard him say, and looked up from her meditation, "Uncle, Naomi, do you realize what this means?"

"I won't get to finish my game?" Iroh asked from where he was seated next to her playing that game related to the four elements again. She didn't know how to play and had never really cared to learn.

"And I'll have to stop my meditation." She added, though she knew her answer wasn't at all what Zuko had been looking for; like always he would believe that light had something to do with the Avatar, charge out to find where that light came from, and like always, it would be nothing.

"It means my search, it's about to come to an end." Zuko said turning back around to face the light.

"Ahh…" Iroh hummed, not looking up from his game.

"That light came from an incredibly powerful source!" Zuko shouted spinning around again to face Iroh and Naomi. "It has to be him!"

"Or it's just the celestial lights," Iroh gestured vaguely at the sky. "We've been down this road before, Prince Zuko."

"Yeah, like twelve times before, and every time it's just a natural phenomenon." Naomi gave her opinion on the matter, as if Zuko would listen to it. He had gotten less and less patient as the year had passed with only disappointments.

"I don't want you to get too excited over nothing. It isn't good for a young man." Iroh said as he went back to his game. Naomi decided against getting back to her meditation knowing that Zuko wasn't done yet. "Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?"

She was right, "I don't need any calming tea!" Zuko shouted. Naomi smirked and stifled a laugh, remembering when she had said the same thing to Iroh all that time ago and he had compared her to Zuko. "I need to capture the Avatar! Helmsman, head a course for the light."

As Naomi stood up to talk to Zuko, she felt a breeze against her face. It felt nice, cool, but not cold, and she closed her eyes for a moment before walking up next to him. "Zuko, you know there's a very good chance that this is just like the other times there's been a light in the sky right?"

"This time is different, I can tell, and even if it isn't I have to try." Zuko stated, not facing her.

She put her hand on his shoulder, "I know. Trust me, I know." She looked out at where the light was as well, caught between not wanting the Fire Nation to get a hold of the Avatar and win the war and not wanting to see Zuko so disappointed again.

* * *

"Iroh, someone needs to talk to him." Naomi said as she and Iroh stood at the doorway to the balcony on the bridge watching Zuko.

"I will go, you should head to bed as well, Naomi."

She nodded, "After you take care of him."

Iroh walked out and started talking to Zuko, Naomi listened in as best she could, she had never understood how Iroh could get Zuko to see common sense so often, she only achieved this about one in five times. However, she did know how to make a deal with him that he would most likely agree to.

"I'm going to bed now," Iroh gave an exaggerated yawn. "Yep. A man needs his rest." Iroh gave up on the subtle hints, "Prince Zuko, you need some sleep. Even if you're right and the Avatar is alive, you won't find him." Naomi winced, not a good thing to tell Zuko. "Your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all tried and failed."

"Because their honor didn't hinge on the Avatar's capture. Mine does." 'There he goes again about having his honor restored' she thought. "This coward's hundred years in hiding are over."

Iroh gave up and walked back to Naomi and shook his head as he walked past her towards his room. She was a little surprised, but not all together shocked, that Zuko hadn't listened to Iroh. She decided to try herself. "Zuko, you need to go to sleep."

"I'll sleep when I've caught the Avatar." He replied.

"We aren't going to reach the area that light originated from for at least a few hours, maybe not until morning, just go to sleep and I promise I'll wake you up when whichever of those two comes first."

Zuko just nodded and walked with her until they went their separate ways to their rooms.

* * *

Naomi knocked on Zuko's door, morning had come and they had still not reached the area that the helmsman predicted the light to have come from, though they were getting close. She knocked again, still no answer, so she decided to just open the door and wake him up, if he got mad at her then too bad. She walked in and went over to his bed where he was sleeping. She started shaking his shoulder and telling him to wake up, similar to how he had been doing to her whenever she slept too much, ironically he reacted similarly to how she had as well. She smirked, maybe now he would know how unpleasant it was to be shaken awake.

"Zuko, come on you told me to get you up." She shook him harder. He finally grumbled and opened his eyes.

"Naomi, what are you doing in my room?" He asked still drowsy with sleep.

"You told me to get you up in the morning if we hadn't reached the place before and it's morning so get up." Zuko rolled his eyes at her, but got up all the same. Naomi felt her cheeks heat up slightly when she realized he was shirtless. 'Stupid shirtless prince, stupid teenage girl hormones.' She thought as she ducked her head to prevent him from noticing.

"Uh, you can go now, I kind of need to get dressed." Zuko said a little awkwardly.

Naomi looked up, "Oh, yeah, right, later Zuko," and she practically ran out of his room, wanting to get as far away from him as possible until her face stopped burning.

* * *

Zuko was practicing his firebending forms, they were still in the basic category, but he had advanced some from when Naomi first met him. He was practicing with two of his crewmen while Iroh observed and Naomi meditated well out of the way of any stray fire blasts. She had opened her eyes to watch his training since her embarrassment had long since died down, it had gotten a lot more interesting than when she had first observed him training; it had gotten more complicated looking at least.

"Again!" Iroh yelled. They started again, Zuko dodging their fire blasts and jumping in between them, shooting fire at both simultaneously, and they all stopped in a triangle formation, pointing their fists at each other. "No!" Iroh said, standing and walking over to Zuko, "Power in firebending comes from the breath, not the muscles." Iroh took a deep breath, "The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes fire!" He punched towards Zuko on this last word, fire coming out of his fist and only stopping just in front of Zuko's face. Zuko didn't even flinch, Naomi, on the other hand, couldn't help it; the only time she was ever afraid of fire that wasn't directed towards her was when it was directed too close to Zuko. She had given up trying to figure out why. "Get it right this time." Iroh finished.

"Enough. I've been drilling this sequence all day. Teach me the next set. I'm more than ready." Zuko said, walking up to Iroh.

"No, you are impatient. You have yet to master your basics. Drill it again!"

Zuko turned and kicked a blast of fire at one of the soldiers he had been practicing with, who fell onto the deck from the force of the blast. Naomi felt bad for the poor guy.

"Zuko, basics are necessary if you want to learn anything more advanced." Naomi said, hoping she wasn't about to incur Zuko's wrath onto herself.

"It doesn't matter, Naomi. Basics won't be enough to beat the Avatar." He told her, and then turned back to Iroh. "The sages tell us that he is the last airbender. He must be over a hundred years old by now. He's had a century to master the four elements. I'll need more than basic firebending to defeat him. You will teach me the advanced set!" By the end he was practically yelling in Iroh's face.

Iroh gave in, "Very well. But first, I must finish my roast duck." He started eating his meal and Zuko backed away with a look of disgust on his face. She couldn't blame him, Iroh might be one of her closest friends but she never wanted to see him eat roast duck if she could avoid it; let's just say that he loved it, _a lot_. She closed her eyes again and slowly sunk back into her meditation. She had been in the same position for a few hours when she heard Zuko on the balcony above her; his voice carrying very clearly through the near silence that was the area around the Southern Water Tribe.

"The last airbender. Quite agile for his old age. Wake my uncle! Tell him, I've found the Avatar. As well as his hiding place."

She couldn't believe it. The Avatar was alive, and Zuko had found him, against all the odds. She wasn't sure whether to be happy or terrified.

* * *

As soon as Iroh had been notified that the Avatar was alive, Zuko had gone into his room to prepare himself for battle. Naomi sat with Iroh is his quarters, discussing the recent events.

"Do you really think it's him?" Naomi asked.

"I think it is quite likely that it is, however, I suspect you are hoping quite the opposite, am I correct?" Iroh was as observant as always.

"I'm not sure what I want right now. On one hand, I don't want the Fire Nation to capture the Avatar and win the war, that would be terrible, no offense." She added looking at Iroh.

"None taken, your feelings are understandable."

Naomi smiled a little; glad he wasn't upset that she wanted the Fire Nation to be defeated. "And on the other hand I don't want to see Zuko so disappointed again and he deserves to go home, assuming that 'home' is really something worth going back to." She had long since lost her faith in family and the so-called 'home' it provided.

"To Zuko it is, regardless of the struggles he has faced there."

"Exactly, how can I hope that something like that happens for someone I care a lot about but still be loyal to the nations I have fought alongside almost my whole life?" Naomi was getting a headache; she always did when she thought about this.

"Well, I do not think you can, not really, the best thing you can do is remain impartial, not fight Zuko, but, at the same time, not hinder the other nations or the Avatar."

She smiled slightly more, "Thanks, Iroh, I needed to hear that. And to answer the question I'm sure is coming; I meant care about Zuko as a friend, nothing more." Iroh had been the main reason she and Zuko had even started talking, let alone formed the strange friendship they had and she knew that lately he had been hoping it would develop into something more, even pushing them slightly in that direction. She was sure he thought it was in both of their best interests, but she knew that even if she felt that way, going down that path would just mean pain, for both her and Zuko, and it wasn't worth it.

"Of course my dear," Iroh said in a way that she was sure meant the exact opposite. "I think we are about to reach the village, would you like to join me on the deck?"

"To watch Zuko try to capture the suspected Avatar? Sounds fun." She said sarcastically.

"I understand your feelings and would not blame you if you didn't want to come, but I meant to see a genuine Water Tribe village since I doubt you've seen one before."

She sighed, she would admit she was curious if this guy was the Avatar and Iroh had just provided her the perfect excuse for watching what happened, "I suppose it would be interesting to see, I will join you, Iroh." He smiled and they headed out to the deck to wait.

They didn't have to wait long, after about five minutes the village came into view. Well, it was really just a couple of tents and some snow buildings, but Naomi didn't have another name to call it by. As they got closer still, she could see a figure standing on the wall surrounding the village; they appeared to be waiting for the ship. It was clear to her that they weren't expecting a ship this big, otherwise they would have been standing farther away from the edge of the water. She was right; as the ship came into full view of the boy his eyes widened and he said something that she assumed to be along the lines of "Oh man," if she was reading his lips correctly, which she was never sure she was. She could now make the boy out. He looked to be about her age and was wearing Water Tribe warrior's clothes and face paint. He carried a cudgel in his hand and she hoped for his sake that he had more weapons than that somewhere. They were getting ever closer still and the boy was still standing on the wall, directly in their path. The ship started to go through the wall and he still didn't move.

She looked at Iroh and asked "Can I help him, with you know…?" and then gestured towards the boy and the snow. Iroh understood and nodded, she knew he wouldn't tell Zuko. As the boy started to fall she bent the snow beneath him so that he fell at more of a gentle slope than straight down, as he would have before. 'If I had been closer and in practice I probably could have made his fall easier though.' She thought ruefully as she watched the gangplank of the ship open and Zuko and his soldiers walked out. The boy charged at them, yelling, with his cudgel held high. Zuko kicked the cudgel out of his hand and then kicked him off the gangplank, in the opposite direction, into the snow. Then they just kept walking out to the village like nothing had happened. 'He is really good at pretending things he doesn't care about didn't happen.'

All of the village people looked terrified as Zuko approached them, she couldn't blame them. "Where are you hiding him?" Zuko asked them all as he searched through their ranks for an old man with airbender tattoos. No one answered him; in fact most of them looked confused. Zuko reached forward and grabbed an elderly lady by the hood and shook her at the crowd, "He'd be about this age, master of all elements." He pushed the lady back to the crowd and she clutched a girl who Naomi assumed to be her granddaughter, if their similar features were anything to go by. Then he shot a blast of fire over the heads of the villagers. "I know you're hiding him." Zuko told them.

"This is wrong, they don't even seem to know who he's talking about, much less where he is." She said, looking at Iroh.

"Yes, I know, but we cannot stop him now."

Naomi just sighed; she was really starting to hate that deal she'd made with Zuko.

Then she heard yelling and looked up. The boy from before had finally managed to get his head out of the snow and had grabbed his cudgel and charged at Zuko from behind. Shouting his head off. 'A warning, yes, that's a good way to sneak up on your enemies.' She thought sarcastically. Zuko turned and ducked under the boy's attack and flipped him as well. The boy landed on his butt and quickly dodged a fire blast from Zuko, rolling towards the villagers. As he righted himself on the ground he pulled a boomerang out from behind him and threw it at Zuko, it missed, but Naomi smirked. She liked this boy's thinking. Most enemies would simply dodge a boomerang and then forget about it, also forgetting that they come back.

However, before that could happen, a little boy from the group of villagers had tossed the older boy a whale-tooth spear and shouted "Show no fear!" She had to admire their persistence. They had one fighter, but they refused to give up. The older boy charged at Zuko with the spear. This attack worked no better than the others, Zuko used his arm guards for protection and broke the head off the spear and then took it and hit the other boy in the head with it, knocking him down, and broke his spear in half. Just then she heard a _whoosh_ near her head and saw the boomerang coming back. Zuko hadn't noticed and it hit him in the back of the head.

'Well that pissed him off.' She thought as fire spurted from his fists to form daggers. She remembered him using the same technique when they had fought for the first time. He was about to advance on the villagers with them when one of the weirdest things she had seen so far in her life happened. A kid riding a penguin-otter came up behind him and flipped him backwards onto his face, his helmet landing on his butt. She had to stifle a giggle, she had a feeling he would somehow hear it.

The villagers cheered and the bald boy addressed the boy who had fought Zuko and the girl crouching behind him, the same one the old lady had gone to, his sister she assumed, since they looked so alike. "Hey Katara, hey Sokka."

"Hi, Aang," the boy, Sokka, said dejectedly, "thanks for coming." By this time Zuko had gotten up and signaled his soldiers to surround the boy. He couldn't have been older than twelve, she noticed. The boy looked around at the soldiers and then used the staff he was carrying to blast snow onto them. The soldiers brushed it off, but Zuko simply melted it.

"Looking for me?" Aang asked. She couldn't tell if he was confident or just calm.

"You're the airbender? You're the Avatar?" Zuko sounded shocked.

The Water Tribe siblings he had addressed earlier looked just as surprised as Zuko, and undoubtedly Naomi and Iroh, looked.

As the two circled each other, Zuko started talking again, "I've spent years preparing for this encounter, training, meditating. You're just a child."

At that the boy stepped out of his fighting stance with a confused look on his face, "Well, you're just a teenager." 'Not a good idea' was all she could think as Zuko shoot fire at the kid and he dodged and spun his staff to deflect of some of the fire. As they circled so that his back was to the villagers, fire he had deflected went towards them and they cried out in fear. He looked back and stopped fighting. "If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?"

"This kid is either crazy or he cares more about others than himself. Considering who he is and who wants him captured, I'm not sure which is more dangerous for him." Iroh nodded his agreement. Regardless of her opinion, which he couldn't hear anyway, Zuko stepped out of his fighting stance and nodded, just one, silent nod and two soldiers grabbed Aang and led him towards the ship.

The girl, Katara, ran forward, "No, Aang, don't do this." She pleaded.

"Don't worry, Katara. It'll be okay." He assured her even as he stumbled onto the gangplank. "Take care of Appa for me until I get back." He told them, still smiling to reassure them that nothing bad was going to happen. 'Who in Spirit's name is Appa?' she wondered, though it was pretty irrelevant considering the current situation.

"Head a course to the Fire Nation. I'm going home." Zuko yelled to the crew. At that point she decided to head to her room, she didn't want to see the Avatar brought down to a cell. She could only hope he could escape from his guards without her help. If he got out on his own, she could direct him to where he needed to go to be home free. She had a feeling that was what Iroh meant by his earlier wisdom, that was how she was choosing to interpret it at least.

* * *

As she walked to her room she saw a guard walking to Zuko's room holding Aang's staff-thing. Not long later she heard a call go out: "The Avatar has escaped!"

'Well, that's my cue.' She left her room and started around the hallways of the ship, looking for Aang. She knew he would look for his staff first; he would probably need it to escape. She didn't quite know what it was, but he had used it to aid his bending before, so it couldn't hurt to have it. She was walking down the corridor to Iroh's room when she saw him closing Iroh's door with a whispered apology.

As he turned around to head to another room he ran into her, literally. "Sorry, gotta go!" He said as he started to run around her. She stuck her arm out in front of him.

"Hey, no, I'm on your side. Your staff is in Zuko's room. Go down the hall, take a left and it's the second door on your right. Good luck, Aang."

"Wait, who are you, how do you know my name, why are you here if you're helping me?" All of this came out in a rush and it took her a second to register what he'd said.

"My name's Naomi, I heard the girl say your name, and it's a long story that you don't have time to listen to, you need to get out of here." She gave him a little push towards Zuko's room to emphasize the lack of time he had.

"Ok, thanks." He called as he headed in the direction she had sent him. 'Well, he took that better than I thought; he didn't even ask extra questions.' She headed out to the deck then to watch his escape.

He almost made it.

Zuko jumped after him and grabbed on to the end of his staff-turned-glider and made him fall back to the deck. In this situation, she knew she couldn't help him; she still had to keep her promise to Zuko, she didn't bother when it was Iroh around, but she didn't want to risk losing her broadswords by breaking it in front of Zuko. They were about to fight when she heard some growling from…the sky?

Zuko seemed to be as confused as she was, but he could see what was making that noise, "What is that?" he asked; maybe she didn't want to see it that bad.

"Appa!" Aang yelled. 'Ok, now I need to know, if that's Appa.' She stepped out to where she could see the sky and saw a giant, fluffy, white, flying bison. 'Well, I wasn't expecting that.'

When she turned back to the fight she saw Zuko shooting fire at Aang and he was struggling to not fall over the side of the ship. He failed and fell head-first into the freezing ocean. "No!" She yelled at the same time Katara yelled it from on top of Appa. "Are you insane, Zuko? That water's going to kill him! It'll make your search pointless! You'll have to start all over again!" That caught his attention.

Except… Aang was fine.

She saw him rise up on a spiral of water, his eyes and tattoos glowing. He came down onto the deck of the ship and sent the spiral of water out at the firebenders, knocking the soldiers into the rails and Zuko over the side, miraculously missing her completely.

Aang collapsed onto the deck and Naomi ran over to where Zuko was hanging onto the anchor chain. She bent over the side and extended her hand to him. She started to pull him up when Sokka came over near them to grab Aang's staff. Zuko's other hand shot up and grabbed the other end of the staff and used it to help her pull him up. Before he had gotten all the way up onto the deck though, Sokka hit him a few times in the head with the staff and yelled "That's from the Water Tribe!" when she lost her hold on Zuko's hand and he fell back over the side of the ship and had to grab the anchor chain again.

"You just had to hit him on the head with his own spear didn't you? You could have just broken it and been done with it, but no, you had to add insult to injury. I can't blame him for hitting you for revenge and neither can you." She ranted as she started pulling him back up. Iroh came over to help her soon, but not before Aang and the Water Tribe siblings had escaped into the sky on Appa, leaving behind three frozen soldiers. 'Unless Aang got his energy back inhumanly fast, then the girl must be a waterbender, and not a half bad one either.'

Zuko noticed then that they had escaped and yelled to Iroh "Shoot them down!" They both stepped back and mirrored each other's movements, shooting a really big ball of fire at Appa.

"Really, shoot fire at the bison? What in Spirit's name did he ever do to you?" She exclaimed at the two firebenders in front of her.

"Sorry Naomi, but it's necessary if I'm going to capture the Avatar." Zuko said, turning to her for a second before a loud noise brought their attention back to the sky. Naomi sighed with relief; it hadn't hit Appa, Aang had deflected it and it had hit the glacier next to the ship. However, now they were in trouble. Ice and snow came cascading down onto the deck of the ship. Zuko pushed her down onto the deck with him, why, she didn't really know, it wasn't like by being on the ground she was avoiding the snow any more than she was standing.

"Good news for the Fire Lord. The Fire Nation's biggest threat is just a little kid." Iroh said from behind them as they stood up.

"That kid, Uncle, just did this. I won't underestimate him again." Zuko said as he gestured to the snow covered ship.

"Yeah, Aang's a pretty tough kid." Naomi commented as well.

"How did you know his name?" Zuko turned to her.

She shrugged, "I heard the Water Tribe kids say it a couple times."

Zuko looked at her for another second before turning to the soldiers, "Dig the ship out and follow them!" The soldiers who were thawing the others out just looked at him. "As soon as you're done with that."

"Zuko, that's going to take them forever, just let me bend us out of the snow or them out of the ice." She didn't actually think he would listen to her, but he seemed to be considering it.

"Fine, just unfreeze them and then let them dig the ship out."

"Wait, seriously!?"

"Just do it before I change my mind." He said as he stalked to the bridge.

"Well, alright then." She walked over to the soldiers. "Okay, you guys might want to step back." She addressed the soldiers who were still trying to thaw their fellows out. They complied rather quickly. She took a deep breath and concentrated on melting the ice covering the soldiers. The ice thawed into puddles of water at their feet.

"That was a very good job considering you haven't been waterbending much for about a year." Iroh said as he walked up to her and the soldiers set about digging the ship out.

"What can I say; I have a very kind friend." Naomi laughed and Iroh joined in as they went to join Zuko on the bridge and wait until they could continue tracking the Avatar, finally with something solid to be tracking.

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**Okay, so do you guys like it skipping around with the scenes in the episode (mostly) or do you want it to be more continuous? I think I can make it work either way I just need to know which you guys think is better.**

**Reviewers:**

**F1nal Front1er: Yeah, I feel like a bit of a hypocrite doing that since I'm literally asking you guys for your criticism, but I also know that practicing in general is better than not practicing at all so that was the point I was trying to get across. While criticism ****_does_**** yield the best results, not practicing would just harm any progress you make. Thanks for your review, it really make me think about that part. (Also thanks for being the only person who reviewed on this chapter).**


	6. Book 1: Water: Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I own nothing here except Naomi.**

**"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."**

** - J.K. Rowling.**

* * *

They had finally gotten the ice off of the ship so that they could move on their way. Slowly, because of the damages, but at least they were moving. After about a night of going like this, they reached a Fire Nation Army port where they could get repairs made on the ship. Unfortunately for her, both Iroh and Zuko had insisted that she not leave the ship while they were here. Iroh said something about it being for her own safety and Zuko just told her to stay either in her room or on the bridge but not to go on the deck.

She had decided to go onto the bridge; it was more interesting than her room anyway. Lieutenant Jee was up there as well as the helmsman, whose name she didn't know.

"I don't understand why you do what he says." Jee commented as they both watched Iroh and Zuko walking off a man they had been talking to just off the ship.

"We made a deal, I'm just sticking to it." She didn't have to ask to know who he was talking about.

"I understand why you would do that when you're with them on the ship, but they're not here and you've been given free reign of the ship by Zuko, no one would wonder about you going around the ship, you could look for your swords. Then, when you found them you could be on your way and never look back."

"Not a bad plan Lieutenant, be careful you might give me ideas. But, there's one problem, we're at a Fire Nation port, and I don't look like a Fire Nation citizen, I'd be caught in seconds. At least here, I'm treated with respect, not like a prisoner. I'd rather have that than whatever would happen to me if I was caught by anyone here." She was still looking out the window and after she finished, she saw a group of soldiers walking onto the ship. "I had to say something, didn't I?" She said this facing Jee, but it was more a question for her.

Some of the men came up onto the bridge and started to question the helmsman and Jee. Naomi tried to appear inconspicuous in the corner, but that could only last so long with her green and blue clothes.

"And what is she?" The head soldier asked Jee, pointing to her. 'Did he just refer to me as an 'it'?' She raised her eyebrow at the man.

"Um, she's someone that General Iroh and Prince Zuko required be on the ship." Jee answered, she had a feeling he wasn't prepared to lie for her.

"And why is she wearing that?" The man still refused to address her directly.

"Um…" Jee was at a loss for an excuse.

Naomi decided she needed to step in, if they found out she was a prisoner, a dual-bending prisoner at that, she would rather they found out from her instead of getting Jee or any of the rest of the crew in trouble with Zuko. "I'm a prisoner on the ship. I offended Zuko and he got mad so he kept me here." So it wasn't completely true, but she still didn't want them knowing she was a dual-bender, the whole Fire Nation wanted to capture the Avatar, maybe not with the same persistence as Zuko, more like an 'if-the-opportunity-presents-itself' kind of want, and she really didn't want to find out what would happen if they thought_ she_ was the Avatar.

"Take her with you." The head soldier told the other. He grabbed her and led her down to the deck and out to a tent with guards standing in front of the door. 'I just can't help getting into trouble can I?' The soldier was re-joined by the head soldier who then walked into the tent in front of them.

"Commander Zhao, we interrogated the crew as you instructed. They confirmed Prince Zuko had the Avatar in custody, but let him escape. We also found that he was keeping a prisoner." The head soldier informed another man, who had really big sideburns, presumably Commander Zhao, and then gestured to Naomi, who had been having a silent conversation with Zuko. It went a little like this:

_Zuko: What are you doing here?_

_Naomi: They saw me, what was I supposed to do I don't exactly look Fire Nation. Sorry. _She was surprised she had said that last part, as was Zuko. This was all said with facial expressions, gestures and mouthing words.

Then Commander Zhao came up and spoke to Zuko. "I didn't know you were in that much need of a lady, Prince Zuko." He looked her over as he said this and she decided she hated him instantly. "But, remind me, how exactly was your ship damaged?" They were caught, her physically and Iroh and Zuko more metaphorically. The rest of the Fire Nation would soon know that the Avatar was alive and Zuko's search will have just gotten that much harder.

* * *

Zhao paced in front of Zuko and Naomi was held off to the side of the tent nearer to Iroh. "So a twelve year-old boy bested you and your firebenders. You're more pathetic than I thought." 'Jackass,' was all she could think with every word this guy spoke, but she knew speaking her thoughts, especially with their surprisingly high content of curse words, would just make the situation worse, so she kept her mouth shut.

"I underestimated him once, but it will not happen again." Zuko said in an attempt to defend himself.

"No, it will not, because you won't have a second chance."

"Commander Zhao," Zuko entreated him. That was how she knew things were bad; Zuko was begging. "I've been hunting the Avatar for two years and I-"

"And you failed." Zhao said, turning around as he shot fire from his fist that narrowly missed Naomi. "Capturing the Avatar is too important to leave in a teenager's hands. He's mine now." Zuko tried to charge at him, but was grabbed before he was even fully out of his chair.

Naomi decided she needed to speak up, no matter the consequences; she'd just have to deal with them. "He's not anybody's prize. He's a human being and you have no right to claim him, no one does."

Zhao turned to her and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him, she struggled the entire time he was talking, but to no avail, "It doesn't matter what I have the right to do, I'm going to capture him and nothing any of you can do can stop me. Keep them here." He instructed his soldiers who were currently occupied holding Zuko back. As he left the tent, Zuko kicked and knocked over the table and tea that Iroh had been using.

"More tea, please." Iroh requested. She didn't understand how he could be so calm about this situation, they were stuck in a Fire Nation harbor, Zuko was about to lose his chances of capturing the Avatar and who knows what they would do with Naomi. Judging by what Zhao assumed she was at first sight, she didn't think she wanted to find out.

* * *

They waited in the tent for hours until Zhao came back to gloat. "My search party is ready. Once I'm out to sea, my guards will escort you back to your ship, and you'll be free to go." Wait he was letting them go, all of them? Naomi couldn't believe it, she was happy, but at the same time, suspicious, why would he just let them go?

Zuko was obviously wondering something similar, though he was focused on another part of Zhao's words, why he was waiting to do so. "Why? Are you afraid I'm going to try and stop you?"

Zhao just laughed, a really creepy laugh in Naomi's opinion, like creepier than the first time she saw Zuko try to smile. "You… stop me? Impossible." 'He seems mighty sure of himself.' She noticed.

"Don't underestimate me, Zhao." 'Yeah, wish I'd known that a year ago.' "I will capture the Avatar before you."

"Prince Zuko, that's enough." Unlike her, Iroh seemed to think this was getting out of hand, personally, she would rather just let Zuko go until he tried to blast Zhao's head off with firebending, but she had a feeling she had absolutely no say in what was going to happen, at least, around here she had no say.

Zhao just ignored Iroh. "You can't compete with me. I have hundreds of war ships under my command, and you, you're just a banished prince." Ok, that settled it; she really wanted to punch this guy until he was black and blue. "No home, no allies. Your own father doesn't even want you."

"You're wrong." Zuko yelled. She hated it, but she didn't think so, she just didn't have the heart to tell that to Zuko. "Once I deliver the Avatar to my father, he will welcome me home with honor and restore my rightful place on the throne." 'If he really wanted you home, he wouldn't have forced you to go on this wild goose chase at all, he would never have banished you, no matter what you did.'

"If you're father really wanted you home, he would have let you return by now, Avatar or no Avatar. But in his eyes, you are a failure and a disgrace to the Fire Nation." This guy just made her hate him more with every word he said, regardless of whether or not he was right. She saw clearly what Zuko didn't: Zhao just wanted to hurt Zuko and since he couldn't do it physically, at least not that she knew of, he was doing it emotionally.

"That's not true." Zuko was so far in denial, he couldn't even see what was right in front of his eyes, had been in front of his eyes since before she had even met him.

"You've got the scar to prove it." Zhao had struck the wrong nerve. Now, instead of just being angry and frustrated, Zuko was furious, and when he got furious, well let's just say he lost control.

"Maybe you'd like one to match." He roared, jumping out of his chair.

"Is that a challenge?" Zhao said, his eyes narrowing.

"An Agni Kai at sunset." 'What in the Spirits is an Agni Kai?' she thought as Zhao agreed.

"Very well. It's a shame your father won't be here to watch me humiliate you. I guess your uncle and prison-girl will do."

"Prince Zuko," Iroh said once Zhao and, miraculously, all the guards had left, "have you forgotten what happened the last time you dueled a master?"

"I will never forget." Zuko replied.

"Well, I have no idea what happened then or just now so can someone please explain. For starters, what is an Agni Kai?!"

"An Agni Kai is a fire duel, traditional for solving disputes between firebenders in the Fire Nation." Iroh told her.

"Wow, some tradition. And the last time you dueled a master?" She asked Zuko gently, he was still facing away from them.

"My scar." Was all he said. She decided not to pry, it didn't really matter right now exactly how he'd gotten the scar in the duel or who gave it to him, at least it didn't matter enough for her to risk asking him about it when he was already so angry. What mattered was that it didn't happen again this time.

They waited in the tent for what seemed like an eternity. Zuko refused to sit and drink any tea with Iroh and Naomi as one hour turned into two and they still waited for sunset. Then some guards came in with some clothes for Zuko and told him to put them on. Naomi was just glad all he needed to do was change his shirt otherwise things would have gotten awkward, she was still frustrated at her reaction to seeing him shirtless when she'd woken him up.

"Why does he need to change?" She asked Iroh.

"It is part of the tradition."

"And they just happen to have those clothes lying around? How often do Agni Kai's happen in the Fire Nation?" She asked incredulously.

"More than you would think, and also more often than they probably should." Iroh replied gravely.

The guard came back after Zuko had changed and led them to an arena, probably specifically for Agni Kai's. A second guard that had joined the first grabbed Naomi from behind and lead her with her hands held behind her back. 'Talk about lack of dignity.' She though as they walked into the ring and she was forced to stand back by the wall with her guard.

Iroh and Zuko went a little further into the arena and Zuko knelt facing Iroh. It looked like Iroh said something to Zuko, but she was too far away to hear it. Zhao was kneeling at the other end of the arena with his back to Zuko. They both stood up to face each other, their 'traditional' vests falling off and then a gong rang and they began to fight.

Zuko made the first move, shooting a series of fire blasts at Zhao, who dodged with ease. 'Don't put all of your energy into the beginning of the fight, Zuko. What the hogmonkeys are you thinking?' She wished she could yell that out to him as he was fighting, especially when he started jumping and kicking fire at Zhao, who just broke the stream on his hands, but she didn't think him, or her guard, would take kindly to her doing that. Thankfully Iroh did it for her.

"Basics, Zuko. Break his root." Iroh called out as Zhao started attacking the now fairly tired Zuko. Zuko put his arms in front of himself and sent the fire falling around him, but he was still pushed back with every blast. On the fourth shot from Zhao, Zuko fell, skidding backwards on his back. Naomi winced 'that had to hurt.' Zhao jumped over to Zuko and sent a stream of fire directly at his face. 'Oh no,' Naomi thought as Zuko stayed on the ground. But, as the fire got closer, her seemed to regain his senses and spun on his hands, blocking the fire and tripping Zhao. Naomi smirked and sighed in relief when Zuko landed on his feet and Zhao was left to stumble backward. Now it was Zuko who was sending the attacks and Zhao who was falling backward from them. Zuko had taken Iroh's advice and was aiming at Zhao's feet to throw him off balance. It worked. Zhao finally fell and Zuko ran up to him, poised to strike.

"Do it!" Zhao yelled at him. Zuko shot fire towards Zhao's face, but it hit the ground next to it. "That's it? Your father raised a coward." She was just relieved that Zuko hadn't sunk to Zhao's level.

"Next time you get in my way, I promise, I won't hold back." With that, Zuko just walked away towards Iroh and Naomi, without looking back.

Zhao stood up behind him and kicked fire at his back with a yell. Iroh was in front of it before Naomi could even utter a warning and he caught Zhao's foot and threw him back. Zuko tried to charge at Zhao again and she couldn't blame him, the guy had just attacked him from behind after he won the fight fair and square, he deserved to be angry, but once again Iroh proved himself to have more self-control than either of the teens he traveled with.

He stopped Zuko before he could attack Zhao again. "No, Prince Zuko. Do not taint your victory." He then turned to Zhao, "So this is how the great Commander Zhao acts in defeat? Disgraceful. Even in exile my nephew is more honorable than you. Thanks again for the tea. It was delicious." She had a feeling she would never understand how he could do that, say something so wise one second and then something so normal the next. As they walked closer to her, Zuko nodded his head to her silent question. She smiled and jammed her foot down onto her guard's, causing him to loosen his grip on her hands enough for her to get them free. She then punched him in the gut for good measure, to make sure he didn't grab her again while she walked out to catch up to Zuko and Iroh.

She walked up on the tail end of a question Zuko had asked Iroh and didn't catch what it was about, but she did hear Iroh's response.

"Of course. I told you ginseng tea was my favorite." She couldn't help but laugh at that, she had a feeling that whatever Zuko's question had been, it wasn't about Iroh's tea preferences.

"What are you laughing about?" Zuko asked, turning to her.

"Nothing, I'm just happy I got to see you kick that jerk's ass is all." She said as they walked back up onto the ship. Zuko let it slide; she guessed he was happy enough with his victory to not hear the whole truth for once. Unfortunately, she didn't think that would be the last they would see of Commander Zhao.

* * *

**Alright, I'm sorry this was later than usual, but I've just been stressed with my semester finals coming up (yeah, I know right, they're not even here yet and I'm stressing) and I didn't get a chance to post this. But it's here now! (I love that I used a J.K. Rowling quote for this she's one of my favorite authors)**

**Reviewers:**

**Spiderninjapirate22: Ok, good, because I was a little worried I would have to go and edit the chapters I've already written. Phew! I literally started making a PowerPoint of quotes that I either liked or found to be inspirational last year and I've been doing it some ever since, so I literally just look up 'funny quotes' or 'life quotes' or something in Google and go to one of the sites it gives me. I think one of them is Brainy Quote (?).**

**Oh, yeah, at the risk of sounding like a fanfiction writer, please review! It lets me know if you guys are liking the story and just what you think of it. It really helps.**


	7. Book 1: Water: Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Nothing owned here.**

* * *

**"A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way." **

**-John Tudor**

* * *

It had been about a week since Zuko's Agni Kai against Zhao and they had completely lost track of where Aang was headed. Iroh had just gone to tell Zuko, none of the rest of the crew wanted to tell him and risk his anger. Naomi had almost laughed when no one volunteered, but the look on Iroh's face stopped her. He looked serious, but invited her to come along to tell Zuko. She wasn't sure if it was a kindness or if he just wanted some back-up. Either way, he knocked on the door to Zuko's room, where he was meditating. Iroh opened it without an answer.

"The only reason you should be interrupting me is if you have news about the Avatar." Zuko said without looking up when Iroh opened the door.

"Well, there is news, Prince Zuko, but you might not like it." That was the understatement of the century. "Don't get too upset."

"Uncle, you taught me that keeping a level head is a sign of a great leader. Now, whatever you have to say, I'm sure I can take it." Naomi was impressed, he really had been paying attention to what Iroh said during their lessons, but she still doubted he would take the news well.

"Ok, then. We have no idea where he is." Iroh said without any pretense. Naomi just gave him a 'what-are-you-thinking?' gesture. Iroh just shrugged.

The flames exploded in front of Zuko, "What?" He roared as he turned to face Iroh, who was fanning himself because of the heat in the room.

"You really should open a window in here." He commented

"Seriously, look into it." Naomi added, they may be firebenders, but she wasn't impervious to flames.

"Give me that map!" Zuko exclaimed as he took the map from Iroh and opened it so the three of them could all see.

"There have been multiple sightings of the Avatar, but he is impossible to track down." Iroh told Zuko.

"Well, what did you expect? He's been eluding death by the Fire Nation for the last hundred years; he's going to be good at being hard to track down."

"That doesn't help us find him Naomi, even though it's true. He is clearly a master of evasive maneuvering. How am I supposed to track him down?" He was staring at the map as he said this and Naomi glanced at it as well. She hadn't taken much interest in it before, but Zuko's comment about Aang's skill caught her attention. They had marked all the places he had been sighted and marked the path he most likely took, but it made no sense. It seemed completely random. She couldn't identify any pattern. Heck, one of the sightings was in the middle of the ocean!

"He's just a little kid. He could have no idea where he's going and just be landing wherever looks interesting. I know that's what I would have done when I was his age if I had the means and the freedom to do so." She commented.

"Even if that is what he's doing, how does that help us track him?" Zuko asked her.

"Well, we know the last direction he was headed. Sail in that direction until you hear news about where he is or where he's headed."

"That would just waste time, what if we don't hear anything."

"Do you have a better plan?" She raised her eyebrow at him. She knew he didn't, but she knew he would only accept hers if he was forced to accept that he had no other options. She also knew that her plan happened to be what they were already doing, Zuko just wasn't completely aware of it. He just nodded, but she knew he had agreed, for the time being any way.

* * *

They had started heading north a day ago and were eating dinner when the chef told them that he had heard the Avatar was on Kyoshi Island.

"The Avatar's on Kyoshi Island? Uncle, ready the rhinos. He's not getting away from me this time."

"Are you going to finish that?" Iroh asked him, pointing to his abandoned fish.

"I was going to save it for later!" Zuko came back and took his fish with him. Naomi had to laugh at Iroh's pout, but she was worried about the quality of the cook's information; she didn't want Zuko to be storming into a town on his war rhinos and terrify the villagers for no reason. She didn't want him terrifying villagers at all, but if he had to do it, she preferred they at least understood why he was there.

After she had calmed down enough to stop laughing, she turned to Iroh and told him what she was going to do. "I'm going to go talk to the cook, see where he got his information, you know, make sure it's reliable." Iroh just nodded, still upset about the loss of the fish.

She walked through the ship to the kitchens and found the cook. "Hey, Goro, where did you hear that about the Avatar?" She asked the cook.

"You mean that he was on Kyoshi Island? The man I bought the fish from told me while I was looking over his produce." He told her without looking up from the dishes he was putting away.

"Do you know where he heard it from?"

"No, sorry, I didn't ask."

"So it was basically a rumor."

"Yes, but it seemed reliable enough." She could tell he was starting to get worried that he had done something wrong.

"Don't worry, I'm sure it was." She assured him, "Thanks for telling me, but I need to head back, good-bye, Goro." He waved absently to her; he had gone back to work after she assured him he hadn't done anything wrong. She headed back to the galley where Iroh was still eating and told him what Goro had told her.

"So you think that this could end up being a pointless trip, correct?" Iroh asked when she had finished.

"I think it could be."

"Well, we will just have to find out." Iroh said as he excused himself and went to his room.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Naomi muttered before following his example and heading to her own room to wait until Zuko left the ship for Kyoshi Island.

* * *

Iroh and Naomi stood on the deck of the ship; Zuko had left for the village on the Komodo Rhinos. She couldn't see the village from the bay but she had heard shouts of alarm go out among the villagers. She looked down into the water momentarily; she was bored not being able to see anything.

"Did you just see that?!" She asked Iroh as she jumped back from the edge.

"No, what was it?"

"It looked like a giant snake in the water." She was sure she sounded insane.

"Are you sure you're not just letting your imagination get away from you? You probably just saw some Elephant Koi."

"Yeah, yeah, I hope you're right because if not…well that thing looked big. By the way, what are Elephant Koi?" She asked Iroh, she had heard of them, but never really knew what they were.

"They are giant orange and white koi fish that live in this bay. Apparently before the war, people would come from all over the world to ride them. Or try to at least." Iroh answered.

"Wow, before the war, so much has changed." She turned back in the direction of the village. There was smoke spiraling into the sky already. "I know I've said this before, but this is wrong. Kyoshi isn't involved in the war at all. They did nothing to deserve being invaded by firebenders."

"And what if they have the Avatar?"

"They still don't deserve to have their homes destroyed." She couldn't expect Iroh to agree with her; he may be a good person, but he was still an ex-general of the Fire Nation; he had been raised thinking that the war was justified.

"Well, it looks like the Avatar's gotten away in any case." Naomi looked up at Iroh's words and saw Appa flying away from the village. In spite of the fires burning in the village, she couldn't help but smile a little.

Maybe she had smiled too soon.

Aang jumped off of Appa into the bay. Naomi remembered the shape she had seen in the water and realized why Katara was yelling her head off for Aang to get back on the bison. That thing was no Elephant Koi. Her eyes widened as she craned her head back to fully see the giant black serpent rising out of the water with the Avatar on its head. The creature opened its mouth and sprayed water out onto the village, putting out the fires.

She turned to Iroh as Appa continued to fly away from Kyoshi Island, "I knew I wasn't imagining things."

"Yes, I concede, you were correct." Iroh said, smiling, as Zuko and his soldiers returned to the ship, soaking wet.

"What happened to you guys?" Naomi asked. When Zuko had finished explaining what had happened in the village, Naomi was clutching her sides in laughter. "Wait, so you all got your butts kicked by a group of girls, in dresses, with fans? Priceless."

"What are you laughing at? It's not like I don't get my butt kicked by a girl like every other day." Zuko retorted.

"Yeah, you do." Naomi smirked as she turned to walk back below deck.

Zuko sighed, "You just wanted to get me to admit that, didn't you?"

"That was a part of the goal, yes. What did you expect?" She smirked over her shoulder and laughed again as she walked down the stairs, because really, it was funny that Zuko had gotten beaten by a random group of girls, even though she knew firsthand that girls were just as tough as guys. 'Maybe it's the fact that it happened while those girls were wearing dresses…' she mused.

* * *

**Sorry this one was so short, but I didn't think it would work to have her go into the village with them. I didn't get any reviews on this one so please review.**


	8. Book 1: Water: Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Don't get me started, I don't own it Ok; let's just leave it at that.**

**A/N: So, I skipped "The King of Omashu" because I couldn't think up a long enough extra story to fit into that and I feel really bad about it because I love Bumi, but, he's in the series later so I think I'll be okay. On with the story.**

**"I'm sorry, if you were right, I'd agree with you." **

**Robin Williams**

Naomi made her way up onto the deck with a small stack of paper and a good supply of charcoal. She had decided to do some drawing since there wasn't much chance of there being any excitement on the ship today. The Avatar had traveled inland and Zuko didn't have a very good way of tracking him there without separating too much from the ship.

"Now, what to draw…" she mused as she settled with her back against the rail of the deck. She looked around at the ocean, but didn't see anything other than the surrounding mountains and some plant life. She eventually decided to try and draw Zuko from memory. It would be a good test of her drawing ability, to see if she was still a fairly accurate artist without seeing the object of her drawing. She had already done this with Iroh and it had turned out alright so she wanted to try her hand at drawing Zuko. Besides, plant life was usually boring, at least to her.

She had been on the deck drawing for about an hour when the subject of her picture came up on the deck as well.

"What are you doing, Naomi?" He asked her when he noticed she was sitting there.

"Drawing."

"Drawing what?"

"Oddly enough, you."

"Excuse me?" She looked up to see a confused expression on his face.

She laughed. "I'm trying to draw people that aren't in front of me accurately and the only two people on this ship whose faces I know really well are you and Iroh and I already drew him."

"Okay, that's much less weird." Zuko sounded relieved.

She just rolled her eyes, "It wasn't weird in the first place, not to an artist, or you know someone trying to be an artist." She didn't look again to see if he had understood and instead continued drawing; she felt like ti would be cheating to look up now. "So, what are you doing up here, Zuko."

"Just felt like some fresh air and there's nothing to do if we can't track the Avatar."

"Yeah, what _do_ you do for fun when you can't actively track Aang?"

"I haven't really had the chance to do much of anything but that since I was banished so I don't really know."

"Well, I just finished, you want to see my attempt at drawing you?"

Zuko just shrugged and sat next to her to look. "That's pretty good."

"You're only saying that because it's a drawing of you. I still need a lot of work."

"Well, remember, 'Practice makes perfect'." He handed her back the drawing.

"Did you really just tell me my own advice?" She raised her eyebrow at him.

"Technically, I told you a saying that someone else said that you told me." Zuko said with a smirk.

"Oh, funny, really hilarious." She said sarcastically, but she laughed anyway. Zuko joined her.

A couple of minutes later a guard came up on the deck with news for Zuko. "The Avatar has been spotted on an Earthbender prison rig in the ocean."

Zuko stood up and offered his hand to help Naomi, who took it. "Good, tell the helmsman to head for the rig. Are you coming up to the bridge Naomi?" He turned and asked her, he had started walking and had only just noticed she wasn't following.

"Yeah, I'll be right behind you, I just need to drop this stuff off in my room." Zuko nodded and left her to walk at her own pace with her thoughts. 'An earthbender prison rig. Why am I only just now hearing that those exist? And on a Fire Nation ship no less, not from an Earth Kingdom citizen. Why do they even have those? Scratch that, the Fire Nation doesn't want to risk anyone interfering with them winning the war if they can help it. It's still wrong though, locking people up simply because they can bend. If that was a viable reason then there would be no free benders in the world!' She was really angry that anything like that prison rig even existed, and her anger only increased when they got there and she saw it.

* * *

She stood on the deck with Iroh as they waited for Zuko to come back from inspecting the rig and she was having a hard time controlling her anger. The entire thing was made out of _metal_, in other words, not something she could bend, and it was out in the middle of the ocean, miles away from the mainland and any sources of earth. This would be torture for earthbenders, and she would know, she was living it. The only thing in regards to bending that was keeping her sane was the times Iroh would let her waterbend. She was royally pissed and it must have shown on her face; Iroh noticed at least.

"Are you alright Naomi?"

"No, this is unjust. Keeping people away from anything they can bend simply because they_ can_ bend is just plain wrong. I know how that feels, not being able to reach out and call a part of you and use it, it's horrible. What could possibly justify doing this to people?" She gestured to the rig.

"I do not know. I have not been a part of Fire Nation decisions since Zuko's banishment, but it does not surprise me that my brother would authorize something this cruel; he is not a merciful man. However, if it is any consolation to you, it seems that the earthbenders who were kept here have escaped, though it is still regrettable that they had been imprisoned in the first place."

Before she could respond, although she didn't have much of a response to Iroh's words any way, they really confused her, Zuko came back to the ship and showed them a carved blue choker necklace that he had found on the rig.

"Look familiar? It belongs to that Water Tribe girl that's travelling with the Avatar."

"How did she not notice that it fell off? It's a choker it sits right up against your neck! Oh, never mind, it doesn't really matter. What are you going to do with it?" She asked Zuko almost tiredly. She doubted he was going to just give it back to Katara; he wouldn't bother to grab it if he didn't think it would help him capture Aang.

"I'm going to use it to convince her to lead me to the Avatar, or use it as bait for her and then use her as bait for the Avatar; I'm okay with either one." He replied.

"Why am I not surprised?" She said before she went back to her room to meditate away from all these firebenders, she couldn't stand to be around them right now, even if she was friends with Iroh and sort of friends with Zuko.

* * *

**Sorry this took so long, it was finals week at school so, yeah. Also, sorry it was short but I didn't want to drag out spots where it was just her fuming or something so I left it short. Review!**


	9. Book 1: Water: Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Naomi is the only part of this that I own.**

**"We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving." **

**― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows**

* * *

"Naomi, there is a hot spring just a short walk into the mainland. Would you like to come with me?" Iroh said as he poked his head into her room.

"No thanks, Iroh. I never really liked hot springs; they make me feel like soup." Iroh laughed and said good-bye to her before closing her door behind him. About twenty minutes later, Naomi went out onto the deck to meditate in a more open space. She had long since calmed down about the prison rig; she knew she couldn't really be angry at anyone on this ship, if she was going to be angry at anyone, it should be Fire Lord Ozai. He was the one she should be angry at for this whole war; he was the one in charge of all the armies. He was the one who deserved her anger.

Not long after she started meditating, she heard Zuko come up on the deck calling for Iroh. "He told me he was going to a hot spring inland." She told him and he set off to look for Iroh after grumbling in frustration. She just shook her head. Iroh was much more of a free spirit than Zuko could handle, granted Iroh was a very proper free spirit who knew how to use manners, but he was a free spirit all the same; Zuko was more of a, well, a teenager.

She waited on the deck for a good amount of time before she heard Zuko's footsteps on the gangplank. "Did you find Iroh?"

"Yeah, I found him."

"And…"

"He should be back here in an hour."

"You just let him waste an hour of your Avatar searching time? Wow, what did he do?"

"I really don't want to talk about it." He said with a shudder. She raised her eyebrow at him. "He got out of the hot springs." Naomi winced sympathetically. Zuko left after that. Naomi just closed her eyes and went back to her meditation; she didn't want to think about that, at all. She didn't know how long she sat meditating, but she didn't bother to guess, it was always a different amount of time than it seemed, before Zuko came back onto the deck grumbling about Iroh.

"He's not back yet?" She asked as she stood up and walked over to him.

"No, and he was supposed to be back over an hour ago. I'm going to go get him so we can get going."

"Well, let me come with you."

"No." Zuko started to walk down the gangplank, but she grabbed his arm.

"Please, Zuko, it's not like I'm going to run away. Besides, I haven't been off this ship since we ran into Commander Jerkface."

Zuko smiled slightly at her name for Commander Zhao. "Fine, but you can't-"

"I know, I know, 'no bending'; you're starting to repeat yourself, Zuko." And they set off down the path to the hot spring with two other soldiers.

* * *

"Uncle! Uncle, where are you?" Zuko yelled as they got to the hot springs. Naomi looked around and didn't see any sign of Iroh, just a weird looking pile of rocks where the hot spring must have been.

"Sir, maybe he thought you left without him." One of the soldiers suggested.

"No, Iroh knows even Zuko wouldn't do that." Naomi said.

"Something's not right here." Zuko looked around the clearing as well. "That pile of rocks." He had noticed them too; at least she wasn't being paranoid.

"It looks like there's been a landslide, sir." One of the soldiers, she couldn't tell them apart, suggested. But, really, she was just surprised at their ignorance.

"Rocks don't move like that naturally unless it's in a _really_ powerful earthquake, and even then it's unlikely." Naomi informed them.

"Exactly, land doesn't slide uphill. My uncle's been captured by earthbenders." Zuko announced. The soldiers seemed a little confused as to how Zuko had gotten to that conclusion so quickly, but Naomi nodded her head; she had come to a similar conclusion when she had taken a closer look at the rocks. "Go to the ship and ready a rhino for me; I'm going to find my uncle." Zuko told the soldiers; they left without question.

"I'm coming."

"No, you're not." Zuko replied.

"Yes, I am. Iroh's my friend and you could definitely use help fighting the earthbenders who took him."

"You do realize that even if I let you come, you still wouldn't be allowed to bend right? So if that's why you want to come, you can just stop bothering."

"That's not why I want to come, and I know you won't let me bend. I can still fight pretty well without bending and I want to help Iroh." Why was that so hard for him to believe?

"Even if you have to fight Earth Kingdom soldiers?"

"I'll live with it. It's not like capturing Iroh would win them the war or even get them closer to winning. From what I've heard, the Fire Lord wouldn't even really care." Sea-green eyes met amber, both determined, both unyielding in their opinion, that is until Zuko realized he was going to lose this battle, stubbornness was built into her nature, not acquired, like his was. He may be the stereotypical hot-headed firebender, but she was definitely a stereotypical earthbender, stubborn beyond belief.

Zuko sighed, "Fine." And then turned to take the Komodo Rhino's reins from the soldier, who had come back some time during their argument, climbed up and offered a hand to help Naomi up as well and they set off in the direction Zuko assumed the Earth Kingdom soldiers had headed; towards the Earth Kingdom capitol of Ba Sing Se. Naomi sat behind Zuko as they headed off, glad that the Komodo Rhino's speed wasn't so much that she would have to hold on to Zuko to stay on; she didn't need him or Iroh teasing her to no end when they rescued Iroh and got back to the ship. Granted he would only tease her if he was in a good mood, but if they rescued Iroh he _might_ end up in a good mood. She would just rather not take the risk and give him any reason to tease her, regardless of the overall outcome of their little mission.

* * *

Zuko stopped the rhino and jumped off. "What is it?" Naomi asked.

"This." He held up an old sandal for her to see.

"You think it's Iroh's?"

Zuko held it to his noses and smelled it, only to recoil the next second. "Ugh, yep, that's Uncle Iroh."

"Good, that means we're headed in the right direction." She decided to ignore that _that_ was how he chose to determine if the sandal was Iroh's.

"Yeah, I just don't know how far behind we are." Zuko said as he jumped back onto the rhino.

"Don't worry. We _will_ find him." Naomi assured him, though she wasn't as sure as she sounded.

* * *

They were still heading on the same path they had found Iroh's sandal when Naomi heard a familiar growl behind them. Zuko heard it too. They both looked behind them to see Appa flying across the sky in the absolute opposite direction they needed to go to find Iroh.

"The Avatar." Zuko started to turn the rhino around.

"Zuko, what are you doing? What about Iroh?" Zuko looked back and forth between the Ostrich Horse tracks they had been following and Appa and seemed to be contemplating his decision. For a scary second she thought he was actually going to choose chasing Aang. Naomi sighed in relief when he finally turned the rhino back in the direction of the tracks and continued after Iroh.

When they managed to catch up to the five Earth Kingdom soldiers and Iroh, they were in a circular ditch with Iroh kneeling in front of a rock with his hands chained together. The captain was saying something about crushing Iroh's hands and bent a large rock out of the ground and above his hands.

Zuko got off the rhino and Naomi was about to follow when he said, "Stay here." She would have argued if Iroh wasn't in trouble. The captain had just dropped the rock and Zuko charged in and kicked it out of the way, also breaking Iroh's chains with his boot.

"Excellent form, Prince Zuko." Iroh said as he stood up and faced his captors.

"You taught me well." Zuko replied as he also faced the earthbenders, ready for a fight. Naomi didn't want to just sit there and let them do this alone. She hadn't come to sit on the rhino and watch, regardless of Zuko's orders.

"Surrender yourselves. It's five against two." The captain said.

Naomi jumped off the rhino and into the ditch, landing between Iroh and Zuko. "Actually it's five against three."

"Either way, you're clearly outnumbered."

"What are you doing?" Zuko whispered as Iroh said something about the earthbenders being outmatched.

"Helping." She whispered back right before she jumped into action. She charged at the earthbender in front of her and jumped over the rock he hurled her way. She dodged until she was close enough to kick him in the knee, making him stumble backwards. She them followed up with two punches, one to his gut and one to his temple, which knocked him out.

She turned to the rest of the battle to see where she was needed. Zuko was having no trouble with his soldier and Iroh was aiming a rock he had wrapped in his chains at another. One was about to punch a rock at Iroh when she kicked him over into the line of fire from Iroh and into his companion, they both fell with Iroh's attack. That left one soldier to go, the captain.

He sent multiple rocks at once at Zuko, who dodged and then counter attacked with fire, but the soldier just deflected it off his wide helmet. He brought a huge avalanche of rocks up above his head and was about to send them crashing onto Zuko when Iroh wrapped his chains around his ankles and tripped him, breaking his concentration and causing him to drop the rocks onto himself.

They observed their handiwork; all of the soldiers were on the ground, either knocked out or groaning in pain.

Zuko smiled at Iroh and put his hand on his soldier. "Now, would you please put on some clothes?"

"Yes, that would be much appreciated, Iroh, you may have already scarred Zuko, but I'd like to preserve what little innocence I have." Naomi added while Iroh laughed at their discomfort and went to get his robes from the saddle of one of the Ostrich Horses.

Zuko looked at her, "What innocence?" He was teasing her, she realized, that hardly ever happened, only when he was in a good mood, which was almost never. Why he would be in a good mood now, she wasn't positive, she was just glad that she hadn't given him a reason to tease her before.

"Oh, shut up, Flame Head." She replied; that had quickly become her favorite of the nicknames she had come up with for Zuko; it wasn't very creative, but it annoyed him most of the time.

"Why did you jump in to help?" Zuko asked, suddenly serious.

"I just thought I should make the fight a little more fair, five against two is the coward's way out.

"Well, thank you, even though you completely disobeyed my orders."

"Did you really expect anything different?" She raised her eyebrow at him.

"Not really, but still, thank you." He said sincerely.

"You're welcome." She smiled at him.

"Why don't you two just hug each other already?" Iroh yelled from the ridge of the ditch. He had a sly smile on his face and Naomi knew, she would have known with just his words but the smile made her sure, that he was trying to make their relationship into something more than a friendship, again.

They jumped and broke eye contact. "We don't have any time to waste, Uncle. I know where the Avatar's headed and we need to hurry if we're going to catch him." Zuko was all business again and he gestured for them to follow him onto the rhino. 'So that was why he's in a good mood, he still has time to catch up to Aang.'

Naomi, who had ended up sandwiched between Iroh and Zuko, whispered to Iroh, "I know what you're trying to do."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Iroh whispered back in a way too innocent voice that only further confirmed Naomi's suspicions. Zuko was too focused on finding and capturing Aang to pay their conversation any attention, he just steered the rhino in the direction they had seen Appa heading and started that way.

* * *

Not long after they had set off in Appa's direction, they came upon a village. The place was trashed and no one seemed to be around, though considering the hour they were probably in bed. "This place looks deserted and I wouldn't blame them for leaving, I know I would if my house was destroyed like this." Naomi said as they jumped off the rhino. 'Guess I spoke too soon.' A man had just walked out of one of the less damaged houses rubbing his eyes.

"Having trouble sleeping?" Zuko asked before he shoved the man back into the house. "Seen the Avatar lately?" He stepped over the man in a threatening way.

"He doesn't know how to ask politely, does he?" She asked Iroh while Zuko got his answers from the poor man. Iroh just shook his head.

Zuko climbed back on the rhino, "The Avatar is headed to talk to Avatar Roku."

"Where?" Iroh asked. 'How?' Naomi thought, but decided not to voice her question since it was unlikely that her companions knew either.

"I'll tell you when we get back to the ship." And they set off.

"Sorry about this." Naomi called as they passed the man.

* * *

"Sailing into Fire Nation waters. Of all the foolish things you've done in your sixteen years Prince Zuko, this is the most foolish." Iroh told Zuko as he stared at Appa through the telescope.

"I have no choice, Uncle."

"I'm pretty sure there's always some choice, Zuko." Naomi said.

"Besides, have you completely forgotten that the Fire Lord banished you? What if you're caught?"

"I'm chasing the Avatar. My father will understand why I'm returning home."

"You give him too much credit. My brother is not the understanding type." Iroh said, but Zuko just turned back to the telescope and ignored his words.

"There they are. Helmsman, full steam ahead. Bring up the catapult!" Zuko called to the soldiers and a huge catapult with a steaming rock covered in tar ready to be launched was raised from below deck.

"Really, Prince Zuko, couldn't you shoot them down with something more fragrant?" Iroh asked as he used a fan to waft the fumes away. Naomi still didn't know how he could switch his topic and tone so easily in any situation. Of course, then she smelled the tar and quickly held her hand over her nose to block the stench.

"Or you could just not shoot them down, that would solve the problem too." Her voice came out nasally due to her plugging her nose and she saw Iroh smirk at the sound. She shot him a glare. Zuko just ignored them both, big surprise.

He lit the rock on fire. "On my mark. Fire!" One of the soldiers cut the rope and the rock went soaring in Appa's direction. Luckily Appa dodged out of the way. Unfortunately that wasn't the only problem, for either of them. "A blockade." There were two rows of Fire Navy ships patrolling in opposite directions as far as she could see.

"Technically, you are still in Earth Kingdom waters. Turn back now, and they cannot arrest you."

"He's not turning around." Zuko pointed at Appa and Aang.

"Yeah, probably because Aang doesn't have to worry about _crashing his ship in the blockade._" Naomi said.

"Please, Prince Zuko. If the Fire Nation captures you, there is nothing I can do. Do not follow the Avatar."

"I'd listen to Iroh, he usually knows what he's talking about." Naomi advised, though at this point she knew there was no point.

"I'm sorry, Uncle, Naomi." Zuko said quietly. "Run the blockade!" He called to the helmsman.

Naomi prepared herself for impact by bracing herself against the rail and closing her eyes. She heard whooshing sounds near them, multiple splashes, and one deck-shuddering crash. "Please tell me we aren't being fired on by a blockade's worth of fire balls." She said, not even sure if someone was close enough to hear her.

"I wish I could say otherwise." Iroh replied.

She opened her eyes to see countless flaming balls of earth headed their way, they had miraculously missed Appa. "I can't help, can I?" She asked miserably.

"No, I do not think Zuko would react well to that."

She was about to respond when one of the crewmen came out from the now smoking engine room. "Prince Zuko, the engines are damaged! We need to stop and make repairs!"

"Do not stop this ship." Zuko turned form the crew member and set his sights once again on the blockade. Naomi just sighed; with Zuko on the ship, she couldn't help with the engine room, which she knew would probably have water pouring into it at the moment.

She looked up to search the sky and saw Aang making Appa fly around the sky in an attempt to avoid the fire balls and she heaved a sigh of relief when they passed through the blockade scratch-free and were able to continue towards wherever they were headed to talk to Avatar Roku. On the other hand, she didn't think they would be that lucky.

"We're on a collision course!" Iroh yelled.

"We can make it." Zuko replied.

"No, we can't, that's what collision course means!" But, luckily for once, she was about to be proven wrong. Just before they would have hit two of the ships, they all stopped. As they passed, Zhao, who was apparently leading the blockade, and Zuko had some sort of stand-off. 'Great, just what we need, more Zhao.' But he let them pass into Fire Nation waters and pursue Aang.

* * *

"What's he up to, Uncle? Why didn't Commander Zhao arrest me?" That was something she would like to know as well.

"Because he wants to follow you. He knows you will lead him to the prize you're both after—the Avatar."

"And, let's face it; with all this smoke he won't have much trouble doing so." Naomi added.

"If Zhao wants to follow our trail of smoke, then that's exactly what I'll let him do." She raised her eyebrow at him, what was he planning?

* * *

'So that's it, he's going to chase Aang on his own in his boat.' She thought as Zuko was lowered into the water in his boat.

"Uncle, keep heading north. Zhao will follow the smoke trail while I use it as a cover." Zuko said as his goodbye.

Iroh stroked his beard in thought.

"You don't think it will work, do you, Iroh?" Naomi asked after Zuko had set off.

"I'm not sure, maybe for some time, but not forever. Come; let's go onto the deck to put on a convincing show for Zhao."

"I'll be right there. I'm going to get the water out of the engine room." She said as she walked below deck.

The firebenders had already welded some metal to the hole so there wasn't any more water flowing in, but it was still about three inches deep on the floor. Naomi took a deep breath and gathered the water into a ball, which she suspended in front of her; luckily the engine room wasn't too big. She didn't know how to evaporate water without fire so she walked slowly out of the engine room and up on to the deck to toss the water overboard. After she finished that, she joined Iroh at the helm.

"How long do you think he has until Zhao realizes he's not here?"

"I'm not sure, but we will know when he stops following us." They stood in silence until Naomi brought up something that had been bugging her since Iroh's most recent attempt at meddling in her non-existent and undesired love life with Zuko.

"Iroh, why are you trying so hard to get Zuko and me interested in each other?"

Iroh didn't even seem surprised that she knew what he had been doing, in spite of his constant denials of it. "I just think you two would be good for each other."

Naomi sighed. "Even if we would and even if we did like each other that way, the costs of it would outweigh any benefits, for both of us."

Iroh seemed genuinely confused. "How so?"

"If we did go out, it would never really work. He's the prince of the Fire Nation, granted the banished prince, but he's still loyal to the Fire Nation and wants to capture the Avatar and help them win the war. I'm a nomadic, water and earthbender who would do anything to stop that from happening, as long as it's in my power. If we lasted until the end of the war, one of us would just end up unhappy or maybe even a prisoner of war, we'd break up and probably both end up with broken hearts. And that's _if_ we lasted until the end of the war and didn't break up in the middle of it. That's the best way things could turn out; for some time in that scenario we would have been happy."

"And the worst case scenario?" Iroh asked.

"We may both end up developing feelings for each other, never act on them, eventually part ways at the end of the war and wonder for the rest of our lives 'what if…'. That's the worst way it could turn out. We're on different sides of a worldwide war; any relationship we had would be doomed the moment it started." She looked down at the churning ocean below them. That was exactly the reason she had been determined to ignore any attempts by Iroh to change her relationship with Zuko. Cowardly as it may sound, she was safe in the friend-zone and she was scared of breaking out of that place, scared of the consequences.

"I'm sorry, Naomi, but I don't think it would be destined to fail."

She looked up and gave Iroh a sad smile. "Then you're more optimistic than I could ever be."

"I wouldn't say that. I just have more faith in the two of you, but right now we have bigger problems. Zhao has stopped following us."

"Greeaat. Now all we can do is wait. Perfect."

"I'm sure it will be fine, Zuko has a knack for getting out of trouble."

"And a knack for getting _into_ trouble." She muttered before bidding goodbye to Iroh and heading back to her room, waiting on the deck would just make her more nervous.

She sat down and decided to meditate again while she waited for Zuko to get back to the ship. She was too tense to really meditate though. She only relaxed when she heard his boat get pulled up onto the ship and she knew he was back more or less safely. She didn't bother to check if he had managed to catch Aang this time, there would be no way she would be able to _not_ hear them if he had.

* * *

**Reviews:**

**Chocoholic10: Thank you, I can't wait to start writing those parts.**

**Spiderninjapirate22: :):)**


	10. Book 1: Water: Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: No, sorry, I don't own Avatar**

**A/N: I'm not too happy with the quote, but it's the best I could find.**

* * *

**"It is when pirates count their booty that they become mere thieves."**

**- William Bolitho**

* * *

Zuko threw a punch at Naomi's shoulder, which she quickly dodged and countered with a kick towards his head. Zuko had finished sparring with Lieutenant Jee, with firebending, and had just started to spar normally with Naomi. Sometime during their fight they had moved about two feet from the rail and as Naomi kicked at Zuko again, this time aiming for his legs, the ship lurched and both of them went careening towards the railing. Zuko regained his balance first and caught himself on the railing and then grabbed Naomi's waist to keep her steady as she crashed into the railing as well. "You okay?" He asked. When she nodded, he went storming up to the bridge, yelling about mutiny and changing course.

Lieutenant Jee strode over to Naomi shaking his head. "That boy has no focus for anything but capturing the Avatar. He can't even see a good thing when it's right in front of his eyes."

"Excuse me?" Naomi asked, confused, but Jee just shook his head again and headed below deck. 'How many people on this ship are trying to hook me and Zuko up?' she wondered, but decided to forget about it as she ran instead to the bridge to catch up with Zuko; at this point anything was more interesting than meditating, she had been doing way too much of that lately.

She caught up with Zuko at the door to the bridge. He didn't even acknowledge her appearance, just shoved the door open and strode in.

"What's the meaning of this mutiny? No one told you to change course." Zuko yelled as he walked to the helmsman. Naomi just walked over to Iroh and looked down at the Pai Sho game he was playing with some of the other crew members. She had absolutely no idea how to play, so the board really only looked confusing to her; she made a mental note to ask Iroh how to play later.

"Actually, someone did." Iroh said from his seated position next to her. "I assure you it is a matter of utmost importance, Prince Zuko." Oh, Naomi couldn't wait to hear this.

"Is it something to do with the Avatar?" Zuko asked, suddenly a lot more interested.

"Even more urgent. It seems I—I've lost my lotus tile." Iroh seemed embarrassed about such a small issue.

"Lotus tile?" Zuko asked at the same time Naomi asked "What's that?"

"For my Pai Sho game." Iroh explained to them both. "Most people think the lotus tile insignificant. But it is essential for the unusual strategy that I employ."

"You've changed our course for a stupid lotus tile?" Zuko was starting to get frustrated, or maybe he was frustrated before and had only just now lost control of it, Naomi couldn't tell.

"See, you, like most people, underestimate its value. Just give me ten minutes to check the merchants at this port of call. Hopefully, they'll have the lotus tile in stock and I can get on with my life." Iroh finished. Zuko growled and breathed fire out of his mouth at the ceiling, filling the room with smoke for a minute. "I'm lucky to have such an understanding nephew." Iroh said as the smoke covered the board.

Naomi sat next to him as the smoke cleared and Zuko stormed out. "So, what is this 'unusual strategy' that you employ?" She asked.

"Well, I can't teach you that, it's a secret, but I can show you how to play, if you wish."

"That would be great, Iroh! I've been needing something to do in my spare time besides meditating and drawing."

"Good, but I will have to teach you at another time. It is a slightly complicated game and you would need more time to fully understand it. If I were to try and teach you now, you would forget most of the rules by tomorrow."

"Thanks, Iroh, just let me know when a good time would be to teach me." She stood up and went to find Zuko; she still wanted to finish their spar.

* * *

"Did you want to come with me to find the lotus tile, Naomi?" Iroh asked, poking his head into her room.

Naomi smiled, "I would love to." She said as she stood up and followed him off the ship. "So, Zuko's allowing me off the ship, huh?"

"Yes, I made sure to ask him before I invited you."

"Wow, I will never understand how you can get him to agree to stuff like that." She shook her head.

"Stuff like what?" He inquired.

"Like letting me sleep in a real room, or letting me go around the ship whenever I want. I never could have convinced him to do that." Naomi didn't know it, but Iroh had a feeling that she had more of an influence over his nephew than he did, but he wasn't about to tell her that, she would just assume he was trying to set them up again and disregard it.

Iroh shrugged. "I have had years of practice dealing with Prince Zuko." Naomi just laughed and they walked into what would be the first of many stores to look for a lotus tile.

After about an hour they met up with Zuko. "We've checked all the shops on this pier. Not a lotus tile in the entire marketplace." Iroh informed him as they walked up.

"It's good to know this trip was a complete waste of time for everyone!" Zuko yelled.

"Not true, I had a pretty good time shopping." Naomi said.

"I did as well, and I always say the only think better than finding something you were looking for is finding something you weren't looking for at a great bargain." Iroh said as a row of soldiers walked up the gangplank, each holding at least one of the many things Iroh had purchased.

"You bought a tsungi horn?" Naomi looked at Zuko to see his reaction and laughed out loud, he turned to her. "You were with him, did you even try to stop him?!"

"Yes, I did," She answered calmly. "You should have seen all the other stuff he was planning to get. At least the tsungi horn can have some uses."

"Like what?" He asked incredulously.

"Music night on the ship." Iroh explained. "Now, if we only had some woodwinds." Naomi shook her head, she had blatantly refused to go to music night whenever Iroh asked her, though he had still persisted, she hadn't really feel too comfortable with the crew back then and there hadn't been time for one lately, what with tracking Aang down. Iroh walked down the pier past some of the ships and Naomi and Zuko had no choice but to follow. "Oh, this place looks promising." Iroh called out when he saw a ship with a man outside advertising that they were selling various wares. Naomi didn't like the look of the ship or the man in front, it all looked very shady, but she didn't want to wait all alone or go back to their ship so she followed.

The inside of the ship did nothing to convince her otherwise, though Iroh still seemed to not notice anything wrong with it. "Oh, that is handsome!" She turned to look at what he was talking about. "Wouldn't it look magnificent in the galley, Naomi?" He asked her, as Zuko was avoiding shopping with a frown on his face, it was safer to ask her.

She looked at the weird ruby-studded monkey. "No, no it wouldn't, it would look creepy." She corrected him. Zuko's attention had long since left their conversation and he was listening to the two men talking. She decided to listen as well, but she only caught the end of the skinnier one's sentence

"-little bald monk she was traveling with." 'Wait, bald monk, oh please don't let it be Aang, for his own sake.' She thought when she heard his words.

"This monk, did he have an arrow on his head?" Zuko asked.

"What's it to you?" The other man, he seemed to be in charge, maybe the captain, asked.

"I'm tracking him, and I can help you get the girl if you help me capture him."

"No deal, we can take care of them ourselves." The captain answered.

"What did they take, there must be a reason you're tracking them down, we wouldn't want rumors spreading that you can't hold on to your wares, now would we?" Zuko replied.

The men seemed afraid of his doing just that, probably of his spreading _any_ rumors concerning their wares, "They stole a waterbending scroll that we had a buyer willing to pay 200 gold pieces for." The captain finally answered. 'A waterbending scroll? How did they get one of those? The only place to get one lately if you aren't a waterbender and already have one is the North Pole and _maybe _the university in Ba Sing Se.' Naomi thought, getting increasingly more suspicious.

"Then I'll help you get the scroll and the girl if you help me capture the monk."

The captain extended his hand to Zuko, "You've got yourself a deal." The action had startled a reptile-bird behind the captain, that Naomi hadn't noticed before, into flying through the room and out to the rest of the ship.

That's when it clicked in her head, shady-looking ship, waterbending scrolls in the Earth Kingdom, not wanting people to know about their merchandise, and the reptile-bird. "Zuko don't!" she said before he could take the captain's extended hand.

He turned to her, "Why not?"

"These guys are pirates, in other words, not people who should be trusted."

"I assure you little lady, when it comes to deals, we always keep our promises." The skinny guy said to her, the look on his face made it official; he was the one who scared her the most. He was looking at her similarly to how Zhao had looked at her when she was dragged into his tent. Seriously, she was a warrior, not a piece of meat!

Zuko shook the captain's hand anyway and Iroh came up to the counter requesting to buy the creepy monkey and then they left the ship after setting a time to meet up with the pirates and track down Aang and friends. Naomi was frustrated; Zuko never listened to her when it was important.

"Why didn't either of you listen to me?" Naomi asked as they walked back to their ship. "Iroh, I'm not even going to bother figuring out why you bought that monkey, nothing I say will change your mind about it, and I don't think the pirates would let you return it in the first place, just don't expect me to look at it. But Zuko, I told you those guys were pirates, also known as thieves and liars, and you go and trust them anyway, how can you be that stupid, they're going to cheat you."

"Naomi, calm down, I have a plan should they try to double cross me." Zuko said calmly.

"Oh, and what would that be?" Naomi asked, somewhere in the back of her mind she noticed that their positions in this argument were reversed, usually it was Zuko who had trouble with his temper and her who was calmer about it, though she did lose control sometimes, too.

"When we find the Avatar, we find the scroll; if they try to take the Avatar to sell him to the Fire Nation then I burn their precious scroll. But, that might not even be a problem; they didn't seem to realize he was the Avatar in the first place."

"You're insane, what if your plan doesn't work?"

"Well, that's why you two are coming with me when we make the trade with them. It's pretty much been proven that my soldiers, while they're good fighters, aren't the most versatile ones."

"Oh, so now you trust me to come off the ship with you? And in a place where Aang is going to be, too? You're not afraid that I'd help him?"

"No, oddly enough, I trust you." Zuko said before walking away to his room. Those words froze Naomi mid-step. He trusted her? He trusted her not to screw up his one chance to get home? He trusted her to have his back? To not run away the first chance she got? He trusted her?

* * *

"Shouldn't we stop to search the woods?" The pirate captain asked as they sailed down the river.

"We don't need to stop. They stole a waterbending scroll, right?" Zuko replied. The captain just hummed in agreement. "Then they'll be on the water."

The captain looked like he was going to argue so Naomi added her own thoughts. "Take it from a waterbender, you don't steal a scroll to learn waterbending and avoid the water. That's just a waste of a perfectly good scroll." Of course she thought it was a waste of the scroll for the pirates to sell it to someone in the Earth Kingdom, but she decided it was best not to push any of them to far.

The captain turned to her, "You're a waterbender?"

"Yeah, is that a problem?" She replied challengingly. She wished she had her broadswords on her back, but her glare would have to suffice as intimidation.

"Just strange that you'd be with people like this." The captain replied evenly.

Naomi scoffed, a retort on her tongue, when Zuko decided to cut the conversation short. "Keep to your own business, Captain, and keep your eyes open for the kids."

"Zuko, if they're kids, then so are we, the oldest is probably our age." Naomi said so that only he could hear.

"I'm basing it off of maturity." He replied. She didn't think it made that much of a difference either way, but decided to let it go, she probably wouldn't have any luck getting him to change his opinion anyway.

About three hours after it got dark, they heard someone shouting. "Ow!"

"Found them." Naomi commented dryly.

"Let's go." Zuko said and then gave the command to the helmsman for full speed ahead. They stopped the ship and the pirates set out to ambush Aang and his friends. Zuko told Naomi and Iroh to wait until they made the trade to come out. Naomi wasn't sure whether she would rather be waiting or helping with this so she decided to keep her mouth shut. The pirates grabbed Katara; she got away, but unfortunately ran right into Zuko. "I'll save you from the pirates." He clearly thought that was clever.

She didn't know why, but that simple sentence and the fact that he'd grabbed Katara like that, it bothered her. It shouldn't, but it did. She shook her head, she was probably just mad that this was all to capture Aang. She had a job to do and she needed to focus on that she could be angry about Zuko and his constant obsession with Aang and regaining his honor later, right now she had to be prepared for the pirates to double-cross them and somehow find a way to help Aang in the process. The pirates tied Katara with her hands behind her. Naomi stood back with Iroh; she didn't want to be involved in capturing any of Aang's group, she was just here to help Zuko fight the pirates should they double-cross them. Of course Zuko wasn't focusing on the pirates at all, all he seemed to care about was finding a way to make Katara help him find Aang. "Tell me where he is and I won't hurt you or your brother." 'Low blow, threatening the girl's family.' She thought while Katara looked outraged.

"Go jump in the river!" She smiled, Katara had spunk.

Zuko switched tactics. "Try to understand," He started circling Katara with an attempt at a smile on his face. She hadn't see that kind of smile on his face since she first met him and agreed to his deal; it was disturbing. "I need to capture him to restore something I've lost—my honor. Perhaps in exchange, I can return something you've lost." He pulled the chocker out of a pocket in his armor. 'So that's how he plans on using her necklace.' She had been wondering about that.

"My mother's necklace! How did you get that?!" Katara yelled.

"I didn't steal it if that's what you're wondering." 'No, but it still doesn't belong to you.' She thought. "Tell me where he is." He demanded again.

"No!" Katara stayed adamant.

"Enough with this necklace garbage. You promised us the scroll." The captain said, stepping in. The pirates behind him all readied their weapons and behind Zuko, Iroh, Naomi, and his soldiers did the same, just more discreetly.

"I forget, how much did you say this was worth?" Zuko said as he took the scroll out of yet another unknown pocket in his armor and lit a fire in his hand underneath it. Naomi gasped along with the pirates; he wouldn't really burn something so precious, would he? Of course, it would only be precious to a waterbender, but still! "A lot, apparently. Now, if you help me find what I want, you'll get this back, and everyone goes home happy. Search the woods for the boy and meet back here."

"Fine." The captain grumbled as they set off to find Aang.

Naomi walked over to Zuko, he was still holding the scroll over a flame. "Would you put that out?!" She gestured to his hand. Zuko rolled his eyes, but complied and stored the scroll back in his armor.

"I wouldn't burn the scroll." Zuko replied.

"I know you wouldn't on purpose, but you know accidents happen. You especially should know."

Zuko sighed, "Yeah, I know, that's why I'm careful."

She knew he was right, but at the same time, he lost his temper easily. "Just try to keep your temper in check, no matter how careful you are, it won't matter if you get too angry." Zuko just rolled his eyes again, but she knew he had at least registered the sense in her words, even if he wouldn't act on it.

She walked back to Iroh, there was nothing she could do right now, well she could help find Aang, but there was no way she was doing that. As she passed Katara, she noticed her giving her a strange look, but she shrugged it off.

* * *

It was morning when the pirates finally came back, and to Katara and Naomi's dismay, they had Aang and Sokka in tow.

"Nice work." Zuko said as he took out the scroll and walked over to give it to the pirates.

"Aang, this is all my fault." Katara said from where she was still struggling to get out of her bonds on the tree.

"No, Katara, it isn't." Aang assured her.

"Yeah, it kind of is." Iroh told Katara.

"Not helping, Iroh." Naomi reminded him quietly.

"Give me the boy." Zuko brought the attention back to his deal with the pirates.

"You give us the scroll." This was what she had been waiting for, the trade, when she figured everything would go wrong, for either Zuko or Aang. And Sokka was about to be the cause of it going bad.

"You're really gonna hand over the Avatar for a stupid piece of parchment?"

"Don't listen to him. He's trying to turn us against each other." 'And doing a pretty good job at it, too.'

"Your friend is the Avatar?" Zuko had been right; the pirates had no clue up until now who they had captured; and now, they were more interested in him than they ever were about the scroll.

"Sure is. And I'll bet he'll fetch a lot more on the black market than some fancy scroll." Sokka continued his horrible plan, whatever it was.

"Shut your mouth, you Water Tribe peasant!"

"Yeah, Sokka, you really should shut your mouth." Aang said nervously.

"It would probably make this easier for everyone if he did." Naomi muttered so that only Katara and Iroh had heard. Katara gave her another weird look.

"I'm just saying. It's bad business sense. Just imagine how much the Fire Lord would be willing to pay for the Avatar. You guys would be set for life." Naomi could see the pirates getting roped further in with every word that came out of Sokka's mouth.

"Keep the scroll." The captain said. "We can buy a hundred with the reward we'll get for the kid." The pirates started walking away with Aang and Sokka.

"You'll regret breaking a deal with me." Zuko said as he and his two firebenders kicked fire at the pirates. The skinny one jumped forward and threw some sort of smoke bomb at Zuko and co. before jumping into the battle himself, closely followed by the other pirates.

Naomi took her chance; Iroh had moved away from the battle, like her wisely not jumping in blind, literally, so she was alone with Katara. It would just be counterproductive if she charged in now so she decided to start the other part of her plan. She moved behind the tree and started untying the rope around Katara's hands. As she worked, the lemur that was always with them landed on her shoulder, it didn't seem like it wanted to hurt her, so she let it stay, though it was quite loud.

"Thanks, Momo, I owe you a bushel of apples." Katara said when her hands were free.

"Well, I think he would enjoy that, but apples aren't really my thing." Naomi said as she stepped out from behind the tree, Momo flying off her shoulder towards the smoke cloud, to do what, she wasn't sure. Katara took a fighting stance, though she made no move for any water. 'She must still be deciding whose side I'm on.' Naomi thought, deciding she should clear it up. "Relax; I'm on your side."

"But, you were with Zuko and-"

Naomi cut her off, "Yeah, it's a long story, but I _am_ on your side and if you need proof, I'm a waterbender," Naomi turned and drew some water out of the water before flinging it back and turning back to Katara "and an earthbender, but that's not really important right now. Just trust me; I wouldn't help the Fire Nation win the war."

"But then why are you with Zuko?"

"It really is a long story, and we need to hurry." Naomi urged.

Katara nodded before turning to the fight, "We have to help Aang and Sokka!" She started running towards to smoke before Naomi grabbed her arm.

"No, you would be totally lost in that smoke; it wouldn't do them any good if you went in there. I have another plan, follow me." She dragged Katara around the smoke towards the two ships, more specifically the pirate ship.

"What are we doing?" Katara asked when they stopped.

"Getting you guys a ride out of here since I don't see Appa anywhere."

"Okay, but how?"

"Waterbending, we're going to raise the water around the pirate ship so that you can set sail down the river. We just need to wait for Aang and Sokka."

"Why not Zuko's ship? Isn't it faster?"

"Yeah, but do any of you know how to control Zuko's ship?" Naomi asked, eyebrow raised, she didn't even know how to do that and she'd been living on a Fire Nation ship for the past year.

"Good point," Katara admitted, "by the way, I never asked what your name was?"

"Naomi and here come Aang and Sokka, time to get you guys out of here."

"Katara, you're okay!" Aang yelled when he saw her.

"Yeah, thanks to Naomi." Katara glanced at her. Of course then Sokka noticed her and freaked out.

"Don't trust her, she was with Zuko!" He pointed his boomerang at her.

Aang turned his attention to her, "Hey, you're that girl from Zuko's ship."

"See!" Sokka exclaimed triumphantly though Aang was smiling.

"Sokka she's on our side, she helped me get out of my ropes and she's a waterbender." Katara informed him. Naomi noticed she didn't mention anything about her being an earthbender, she was probably still figuring out if that was even possible, so Naomi let it slide, they didn't really have the time for an explanation anyway.

"Yeah," Aang agreed, "and she helped me find my staff on Zuko's ship."

"Fine," Sokka grumbled, "but how are we gonna get out of here."

"You guys are escaping on the pirate ship. Aang, Katara, I need you guys to help me raise the water around the ship, it'll be faster with all three of us. Just push and pull the water until it gets high enough." She was hoping they had put that scroll to good use and knew how to do a relatively simple move like this. They nodded and they worked in sync until the ship floated freely in the water.

"It worked, everybody in!" Katara yelled. Aang, Katara and Sokka all climbed up the ladder hanging from the side of the ship, but Katara noticed that Naomi hadn't followed. "Aren't you coming, Naomi?" She asked.

Naomi shook her head, "No, I have a promise I have to keep, but good luck." Katara nodded and finished climbing the ladder to join the boys on the deck.

Naomi ran back to the battle to see Zuko fighting the pirate captain and another pirate coming up behind him. She ran at the pirate and aimed a kick at his stomach before he could get any closer. He focused his attention on her and it was then that she noticed he had a knife. 'Great, just my luck. And me with no weapon, oh well, guess I'll have to find one.' She smirked a little; she knew exactly how to disarm him. As he struck towards her with the knife, she grabbed his arm and spun him around, trapping it behind his back. He dropped the knife in surprise and she caught it before hitting him on the head with the hilt and letting him collapse to the ground, unconscious. She dropped the dagger and then turned to Zuko and the captain. She was about to step in to help when Iroh did it for her.

"Are you so busy fighting that you cannot see your own ship has set sail?" He yelled at the two of them, though really as far as she knew, it was only the pirates ship that had set sail.

"We don't have time for your useless proverbs, Uncle." Zuko replied.

"It's no proverb." Iroh pointed to the pirate ship currently sailing downstream. Naomi looked upstream to see Zuko's ship following it.

"Bleeding hog monkeys!" The captain exclaimed as he ran after his ship. Zuko just laughed at him, he didn't seem to realize his ship was following. Naomi came over and hit him on the head.

"What was that for?" He exclaimed; she just pointed to the river. "Hey, that's my boat!" And Zuko, following the pirate captain's footsteps, started chasing after his boat as well.

"Maybe it should be a proverb." Iroh mused.

"Not the time, Iroh." Naomi said before chasing after Zuko.

"Come on, Uncle." Zuko called back when he noticed Iroh wasn't behind them. They chased the boats all the way to a waterfall at the end of the river. Or at least they made it to the waterfall after the boats had gone over. Naomi was relieved to have seen Appa flying off before they got there; Aang, Katara, and Sokka were safe, for now at least. "My boat!" Zuko cried, looking over the edge of the cliff that created the waterfall.

"Relax, Zuko, you have a ship, it's not the end of the world." Naomi said as she stopped next to him.

Iroh came last, panting and then chuckling. "Prince Zuko, Naomi, you two are really going to get a kick out of this. The lotus tile was in my sleeve the whole time." He pulled his hand out of his sleeve and proudly displayed the Pai Sho piece.

Naomi smiled, glad that he had found what he'd been looking for, Zuko on the other hand, wasn't so happy about it. He grabbed the tile from Iroh's hand and threw it over the cliff. She thought she saw it hit one of the pirates, which only made her smile more. "What did I tell you, Zuko? Don't trust pirates." He turned to her, an angry look on his face, but she decided to push her luck a little further. "Now we have to do all this again at another port, and you're coming with to make sure Iroh doesn't buy so much stuff again." Zuko growled, though this time more frustrated than angry. Naomi laughed as they headed back to the ship to continue on their journey, though they would be stopping at the next port whether Zuko wanted to or not.

* * *

"So, really, why did that girl, Naomi, help us, but then go back to Zuko?" Sokka asked after Katara put the scroll away as they rode away on Appa.

Katara and Aang shared a look, "It's a long story." They said in unison and then laughed. Sokka didn't really get it, but laughed along anyway; at least that girl was on their side.

* * *

**Reviewers:**

**Sunflower13: I'm so glad you like her. I know, I ramble too, but it comes out of my mouth instead of staying in my head. I don't think it would be a Zuko pairing fic without Iroh's meddling ;)**

**LadyFelton1994: Thank you very much.**

**luv2read: Thank you, I'm glad you like Naomi and her relationship with Iroh. I can't wait to get to that part either; I'm really looking forward to writing it.**


	11. Book 1: Water: Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Nothing about Avatar: The Last Airbender belongs to me.**

**A/N: Warning, there are a few long dialogue moments in this one. Just putting that out there.**

* * *

**"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."**

**-Maria Robinson**

* * *

"There is a storm coming, a big one." Iroh said, staring at the clear sky.

"You're out of your mind, Uncle. The weather's perfect. There's not a cloud in sight." Zuko said abandoning his telescope to walk over to Iroh.

"Yeah, I've never seen a storm just appear when the sky was this clear." Naomi agreed, though in a much less aggressive way than Zuko had.

"A storm is approaching from the north. I suggest we alter our course and head southwest."

"We know the Avatar is travelling north, so we will do the same." Zuko said.

"Prince Zuko, consider the safety of the crew." Iroh added, in the hopes that it would make Zuko change his mind.

"The safety of the crew doesn't matter." Zuko exclaimed at the worst possible moment to do so. Lieutenant Jee had just walked up onto the deck and he did not look pleased. Naomi fought the urge to smack Zuko upside the head. "Finding the Avatar is far more important that any individual's safety." Zuko said before he stalked off to some part of the ship; Naomi had stopped bothering to keep track of where he went.

"He doesn't mean that. He's just all worked up." Iroh tried to pacify the lieutenant, but it didn't really work; Jee walked off the deck as soon as Iroh had finished talking.

"Sorry, Iroh, but I think he did mean that. To an extent at least." Naomi said.

"Yes, well, I wish I could say you were completely wrong."

"It would sure make life around here easier." Naomi added with a wry smile. "By the way, how can you be so sure there's a storm coming?" She asked. She may not believe that there was one coming at the moment, but that didn't change the fact that she was wary of storms.

"After many years, you become accustomed to detecting the changes in the wind and the atmosphere that tell of a coming storm." Iroh replied in the manner of a person who knows they are more wise than you, but don't want to rub it in.

Naomi sighed, "I almost wish you had said something that you would expect an older person, no offense, to say, like 'I felt it in my bones' or something."

"Why?" Iroh asked curiously.

"Because then I could believe that you were wrong." She answered before turning away and walking to the other end of the deck, letting Iroh know that she didn't want to talk anymore.

* * *

As the day progressed, storm clouds appeared on the horizon and quickly reached the ship. Lieutenant Jee noticed this, as did pretty much every other person on the ship.

"Looks like you uncle was right about the storm after all." He said when he saw Zuko emerge onto the deck.

"Lucky guess." Iroh said modestly. Naomi just looked worriedly out at the storm clouds.

"Lieutenant," Zuko said in what she assumed was supposed to be a threatening tone, "you'd better learn some respect, or I'll teach it to you." Zuko got in Jee's face at the end of this sentence before walking away.

"What do you know about respect?" He said to Zuko's back. "From the way you treat everyone here from your hard-working crew to your esteemed uncle to even your willing prisoner, shows you know nothing about respect." She joined Iroh in covering her face with her hand to avoid seeing anything that was about to happen, though she knew she would look if it got any more intense. Purely for safety purposes of course. "You don't care about anyone but yourself. Then again, what should I expect from a spoiled prince?" That was the last straw for Zuko and Naomi couldn't believe that the lieutenant had dared to push him so far.

Zuko turned to Jee in a fighting stance, which he quickly matched. "Easy now." Iroh said as they started to circle each other.

"Fighting isn't going to solve anything." Naomi added, hoping this wasn't going to escalate further. Their arms met at their wrist guards and they started smoking, there was no firebending clearly involved, but that made it all the more frightening to Naomi, they were holding back, waiting for the right moment.

"Enough!" Iroh separated the two, "We are all just a bit tired from being at sea so long. I'm sure after a bowl of noodles, everyone will feel much better." The two firebenders just turned from Iroh and Jee walked away.

"I don't need your help keeping order on my ship, Uncle." Zuko said as the crew members who had gathered on the deck dispersed. Iroh put a hand on Zuko's shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

"You may not need it, Zuko, but it never hurts to have someone to help you." Naomi tried as well with similar results.

"I don't need your help either, Naomi." He said before walking to the very front of the deck.

'Well, that was uncharacteristic of Zuko. It was rude, even for him.' Naomi was perturbed, there had to be another reason Zuko was being so irritable, but she knew that if she asked now she would never get an answer, so she settled for walking off with Iroh to get the bowl of noodles he had suggested; she needed something to calm her nerves right now, now that she knew the storm really was happening, for sure.

* * *

"I wish I knew what was up with Zuko. He's acting weird, even for him!" Naomi exclaimed, putting down her bowl.

"I am not sure, Naomi, though I have an idea." Iroh said as he also put down his bowl. Naomi was following him, that is until he said something completely off topic, or at least it seemed so at the time. "Why don't we join the crew so that I don't have to repeat myself too many times tonight?" Iroh then stood up and motioned for her to follow. Of course, she did, her interest was too peaked not to.

They walked all the way to the boiler room in the ship and Iroh opened the door to reveal Lieutenant Jee and a few other crewmen talking around a flame. How he knew they were down there, she had no idea, but she had learned not to question how Iroh knows things, it just wasted time as she would never really know.

"I mean, who does Zuko think he is?" Jee exclaimed loudly as the end of what was clearly a much longer rant than they had witnessed.

"Do you really want to know?" Iroh asked, stepping into the light cast from the fire, along with Naomi.

"General Iroh, we were just—" Jee stammered.

"It's okay. You have a right to be curious, you all do." He turned to Naomi for a second before facing the men again. "May we join you?"

"Of course, sir." Iroh and Naomi settled down on some of the barrels the crew members had gathered and Iroh started his explanation.

"Try to understand, my nephew is a complicated young man. Even more so than you have noticed, Naomi." He added, she had been just about to interrupt with a 'Well, duh!' but then decided it was better to keep her mouth shut and let Iroh continue. "He has been through much. When he was fourteen, he convinced me to let him come into a war meeting with me. I let him, on the condition that he would not speak; as he was not a member of the war council it was forbidden. One of the generals suggested a plan that would involve sacrificing an entire battalion of new recruits with almost no battle experience in order to take out a team of the Earth Kingdom's best Earthbenders. Zuko was outraged, and either forgot or ceased to care about what I had told him before, and he spoke out against the general's plan. Zuko was right, you see? But it was not his place to speak out and there were dire consequences. After Zuko's outburst in the meeting, the Fire Lord became very angry with him. He said that Prince Zuko's challenge of the general was an act of complete disrespect. And there was only one way to solve this." Naomi understood.

"An Agni Kai." She stated.

Jee nodded at her, and clarified, for Iroh was still staring at the flames, "A fire duel."

"That's right, both of you. Zuko looked upon the old general he had insulted and declared that he was not afraid, but Zuko misunderstood. When he turned to face his opponent, he was surprised to see it was not the general. Zuko had spoken out against the general's plan, but by doing so in the Fire Lord's war room, it was the Fire Lord whom he had disrespected. Zuko would have to duel his own father. When Prince Zuko saw that it was his father who had come to duel him, he begged for mercy. He refused to fight him, and as punishment, the Fire Lord marked him permanently. I looked away."

"I always thought that Prince Zuko was in a training accident." Jee said in shock when Iroh had finished his story.

"It was no accident." Iroh said.

"I knew that it was an Agni Kai, but, that's just horrible." Naomi was surprised she could even make the words come out she was so shocked.

Iroh nodded his agreement, "After the duel, the Fire Lord said that by refusing to fight, Zuko had shown shameful weakness. As further punishment he was banished and sent to capture the Avatar. Only then could he return with his honor."

"So that's why he's so obsessed. Capturing the Avatar is the only chance he has of things returning to normal." Jee said.

"Things will never return to normal, but the important thing is, the Avatar gives Zuko hope." Naomi pondered Iroh's words for a moment before standing and walking out of the boiler room. No one questioned her, at least not that she heard. She was too deep in thought to hear them anyway. 'Zuko's _father_ did that to him. And here I was thinking I had a bad father because he didn't treat me like a little kid, he treated me like a warrior, something I've been struggling for people to think of me as ever since. Everything in that story, Spirits, I wish it was just a fairytale, meant to convince children to behave, but even I can't kid myself that much, not when I see the proof of it every day.' Without realizing it she had ended up in front of Zuko's door. Without hesitation she pushed it open.

"I'm sorry." She said the second she saw Zuko, he was sitting on his bed.

"Since I'm going to assume it's not for coming in without knocking, why?" He looked up at her, she noticed in relief that he seemed to have calmed down a lot since the episode on the deck.

"Your scar." She sat down next to him on the bed.

Zuko sighed, "You didn't cause it, you have nothing to be sorry for."

"I'm sorry it happened, I'm sorry your dad's a big enough jerk to do that to his own son, I'm sorry that you have to live with it."

"Like I said, it's not your fault, any of it. It's a scar, it's not going away. As for living with it, you get used to it eventually, the second looks from people wondering what happened to you instead of just acting like you're just a normal person. Eventually it stops bothering you." He looked down at the bed. Naomi had never seen him this vulnerable.

"If it makes you feel any better, I know at least two people who will never look at you differently, scar or no scar, whether they know the cause of it or not."

"Who?" He looked up at her in surprise.

"Me and Iroh." She said softly.

He gave her a small smile, a real one, the first she had seen on his face on in a long time. "Thanks."

She would have replied had it not been for the loud clap of thunder and the flash of lightning that followed almost before it had ended. At the noise she jumped, and not the kind of jump that shows you're startled by something, she literally jumped off the bed and stood up, shaking.

"Naomi, what's wrong?" Zuko asked in concern.

"Nothing, it's nothing." She said shakily as she sat down next to him again.

"No, it's something. Are you afraid of the storm?" That was the only logical thing he could think of that would make her jump like that in this situation.

Her shoulders slumped, "Yeah." She said softly.

"Care to tell me why?" He asked, equally softly.

"It's a long story."

"It seems like most of your stories are. There's nothing else we can do during the storm, we've got some time."

She sighed and started her story. "I was six. My family had just come back from attacking a Fire Nation camp. My dad and my older brother, Lee, were arguing. No one else paid it any attention, but it always bothered me when they fought so I listened. I guess my dad was mad at Lee because he hadn't killed Fire Nation soldiers; he'd just knocked them out. That didn't surprise me, Lee never believed in killing anyone, Fire Nation or not, neither do I. My dad said Lee was a coward and that he didn't deserve to call himself his son. It was horrible. When we made camp that night, it was in a cave in the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Lee wanted to prove to my dad that he was brave so, instead of sleeping in the cave with the rest of us, he slept out on the narrow ledge in front of it. We hadn't even come up that way it was so narrow; my dad and I had to earthbend us up to the cave. That night, there was a storm; I think Lee knew it was coming, that was why he slept outside. I was just a little kid and the thunder and lightning scared me, instead of going to my parents, I went outside to Lee. I figured I could convince him to come in the cave and sit with me until the storm ended and then he could go back outside before our dad woke up; dad would think he was brave and I would be okay during the storm. But, when I went outside," Naomi closed her eyes, like the memory was getting painful for her to think about, "almost the entire ledge was gone, including Lee. He was sixteen, our age, way too young to die. Lee wasn't a bender, he couldn't have survived, the cliff was so high and there were rocks at the bottom in the water. I was the only one in my family who was sadder than someone would be if they lost a soldier who served under them. They just looked at it as a tragedy in the moment and acted like it had never happened as soon as we left where we were camping and set out to find another Fire Nation encampment. After that, my training got a lot more rigorous and I started fighting with my parents, more than Lee ever did. I took up broadswords as my weapons because Lee had told me he thought I would be good at them when he was showing me how he used his short-sword, but I hated every moment I spent with them training me, having to pretend that I didn't miss my older brother. Eventually I couldn't take it and I ran away when I was fourteen. Lee didn't like the life our family was living any more than I did, we both wanted to live a similar life, trying to end the war, but in a different way than our family forced us to. I think he would have left a long time before he died if it wasn't for me. He felt like he needed to protect me, keep me from becoming as hateful as the rest of my family. He did a good job, he kept me from realizing just how un-family-like my family actually was. After he died, I started noticing everything he tried to protect me from and I stopped believing that I was part of a family at all, I was just a part of a miniature army, headed by my dad. I've been terrified of storms ever since that night, it was when my life pretty much fell apart." She finished, relieved that she hadn't broken down sobbing halfway through the story, she had managed to keep it to only a few small tears.

"I'm sorry." Zuko offered as he wiped the last of the offending tears off her face.

Naomi laughed humorlessly. "For what? It happened ten years ago, you had nothing to do with it."

"Well, then I guess we're both sorry for something we had no control over, but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm sorry it happened."

She turned to him and gave him a small smile, "Thanks, Zuko. It felt really good to tell someone about that."

He smiled back, "You're welcome." Just then, they heard a loud crack. Lightning had struck the ship. Zuko stood up and was about to rush out when he looked back at Naomi, who seemed caught between leaving with him and staying on the bed. "You can stay here if you want."

That steeled her resolve, "No, I have to face this sooner or later, let's go." They raced out of his room and on to the deck where they met Jee and Iroh. Naomi paused again before the door, but again she steeled herself and went on; ten years was far too long for her to be petrified of storms.

Zuko looked up at the rest of the ship to assess the damages. "Where were we hit?"

"I don't know." Jee replied as they all tried to keep their balance.

"Look!" Iroh shouted, pointing to the bridge.

"The helmsman!" Zuko yelled. The lightning had struck the bridge and the helmsman was dangling out, barely holding on. "Naomi, try to keep the waves from flooding the ship." He called to her as he and Lieutenant Jee climbed up the ladder to get the helmsman.

'Yeah, because that's easy.' She thought as she steadied herself on the deck with Iroh. As a huge wave came towards the ship she got an idea. One of the only earthbending moves she had learned that didn't relate directly to fighting was how to break a rock without physically hitting it. She decided to try this on the wave, maybe it would work with water as well as it did with earth. Just before the wave struck the ship, she extended one arm out sideways from her chest towards the wave and the other on her other side, the wave shattered and the water fell to join the rain already pelting the deck. Just as she was about to cheer that her idea had worked the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She turned around to see Iroh, with lightning hitting one of his hands and leaving the other. When the lightning had run its course into the ocean, where it seemed Iroh had directed it, Iroh was left with his hair sticking out at odd angles and his clothes a little blackened, but otherwise unhurt. She made a mental note to ask him about that as she broke another wave.

Finally Zuko and Jee came down with the helmsman and they made a plan to somehow get the ship to safety, or at least that's what they started to do. "We need to get out of this storm. It's too dangerous with the damages." Naomi said.

Zuko was about to reply when he glanced at the sky, "The Avatar!"

"What do you want to do, sir?" Jee asked, it seemed they had come to an understanding while they were helping the helmsman.

"Let him go. Naomi's right, we need to get this ship to safety."

"Then we must head directly into the eye of the storm." Iroh advised. They did, sailing quickly as they could so as to get to safety as soon as possible.

"Uncle, I'm sorry." Zuko said once they had gotten there.

"Your apology is accepted." Iroh told him good naturedly.

"Naomi, I-" He started, but she cut him off.

"You don't have to, I wasn't angry in the first place, just frustrated with your stupid stubbornness." She smiled to show him she meant it and wasn't just trying to make him feel better.

Of course, then something unexpected just had to happen, it _was_ their lives after all. At first, it was what looked like a glowing orb being thrown out of the water, but when it was all free, it was clear that it was Appa carrying Aang, Sokka, Katara, and some old man Naomi didn't know. Aang and Zuko stared at each other as they flew away, neither making a move to stop the other from doing anything.

"Should we follow them now, sir?" Jee asked.

"No, we just got this ship to safety; we should wait out the storm before going anywhere, even chasing the Avatar." Zuko replied.

Naomi was proud of him. "I don't think we'll have to wait that long, the storm seems to be letting up."

"Good, when it does, we need to find a port and make repairs, we'll figure out how to find the Avatar again when that's done."

Okay, she was _really_ proud of him. In the course of about an hour, he had matured more than most people would in a year. He was putting others ahead of himself and his desires, he was being rational, she couldn't believe that this was the boy who was burned by his father at fourteen, she only hoped it would stick.

"Zuko," he turned to her, "keep acting like this, and I think you'll make a great Fire Lord someday, might even turn that country around for the better." She left before seeing his reaction; she had just done two things she never did in front of Zuko: encouraged him that he would capture Aang and told him the Fire Nation was screwed up; she didn't want to stick around to see his reaction. She needn't have worried; Zuko just smiled at the compliment and shook his head at the 'blow' to the Fire Nation. Iroh, well Iroh just thought about how his plan was working perfectly; they were treating each other as equals, friends even, he just hoped it would hold.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, I did have a point to making her brother's name Lee, it's just not going to show up for a while.**

**Reviews:**

**Sunflower13: Thank you.**

**Littlespottedcat: I'm glad you like it.**

**Spiderninjapirate22: Lol, thank you.**

**Luv2read: Thank you. Don't worry it will last, for a time anyway.**

**Nicoisabladeofgrass: Thanks, I really needed the push.**


	12. Book 1: Water: Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar.**

* * *

**"In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." **

**- Eleanor Roosevelt**

* * *

"I'm thinking of having another music night tonight." Iroh mentioned casually as he and Naomi walked around the ship.

She laughed, "Have you tried to get Zuko to participate again yet?" They hadn't heard anything that could even be remotely related to Aang since the storm and Zuko had been getting increasingly irritable, again.

"I was actually planning on doing that right now, if you don't mind."

"Of course not, but it's your funeral, there's _no way_ he'll agree to do something fun until he finds Aang again."

Iroh laughed, "You are probably right, but who knows, maybe this time will be different."

She shook her head with a smile as they came upon Zuko's door and Iroh knocked before opening it.

"Did you have news about the Avatar, Uncle?" He asked as they stepped in.

"No, we still haven't heard anything. But, I have decided to hold music night for the crew again. I think it would be a good idea for you to play the tsungi horn."

"No." was Zuko's curt answer.

"Wow, such thought put into that decision." Naomi said sarcastically, "Come on, even _I'm_ going to at least go."

Zuko was about to respond when one of the men came in, "Sir, there's a messenger from another ship, he has requested you."

Of course, they all went; a messenger on their ship was almost never good news. In fact, Naomi couldn't remember the last time it was.

* * *

"The hunt for the Avatar has been given utmost importance. Any information regarding the Avatar or his whereabouts is to be reported directly to Admiral Zhao."

"Zhao has been promoted to admiral? Good for him." Iroh said from the Pai Sho game he had started with the crew as soon as they had gotten to the bridge. Naomi disagreed, and by the look on Zuko's face, he did too.

"I've got nothing to report to Zhao." Zuko said angrily. "Now get off my ship and let us pass."

"Admiral Zhao is not allowing ships in or out of this area." 'This messenger must love annoying Zuko.' She thought as Zuko fumed silently for only a second before bursting.

"Off my ship!" Zuko yelled.

"Wow, promote a guy to admiral and suddenly he's all high and mighty." Naomi said as the messenger and his fellows left. She was really annoyed; of course the one member of the Fire Nation whom she actually knew and hated more than almost anyone would get promoted to a position where he could cause them even more trouble.

"Excellent. I take the pot." Iroh exclaimed, seemingly completely oblivious to anything that had just transpired since he last spoke up. "But, you're all improving. I'm certain you will win if we play again." He addressed the crew members he was playing with before starting to set up for another game.

"Come on, Zuko, let's spar, you look like you need to blow off some steam." She knew she definitely needed to.

"I'd rather train alone. I'm not in the mood to be cautious." He said before storming down to the deck.

She would have been miffed if she wasn't actually grateful. He didn't think he could control himself enough to not firebend so he didn't want to risk hurting her again. Yeah, that pretty much outweighed her annoyance that he just denied her offer to spar. Whether she would admit it out loud or not, sparring with him had quickly become one of her favorite things to do, right after having tea with Iroh.

"Naomi, why don't you join us? Seeing the game in action would be a good way for you to begin learning." Iroh called from the Pai Sho table.

She smiled, "Sure, Iroh, I would love to." If she couldn't spar, she might as well occupy her mind.

* * *

Naomi looked out the window again from the Pai Sho table, it was nearing sunset and she could still see the occasional fire blast from the deck.

"Okay, someone needs to do something about him." She said, standing up.

"I agree, come, we will go see why he is so upset." Iroh said, also standing. "Is everything okay?" He asked Zuko when they finally reached the deck. "It's been almost an hour and you haven't given the men an order."

"I don't care what they do." Zuko said, stopping his anger induced firebending.

"Be careful when you say that, you never know what might happen, Zuko." Naomi said in an attempt to lighten the mood. Iroh lightly shook his head at her telling her that now was not the time. Apparently it was never the time to try and lighten Zuko's mood.

"Don't give up hope yet, Prince Zuko. You can still find the Avatar before Zhao."

"How, Uncle?" Zuko turned back towards them, suddenly looking anxious and almost desperate. Naomi gave Iroh a look asking the same question, it didn't seem like that was a possibility to her. "With Zhao's resources it's only a matter of time before he captures the Avatar. My honor, my throne, my country—I'm about to lose them all."

"I can't say anything about your throne or your country, but you wouldn't be losing your honor. That's not something someone can take away from you." Naomi said softly. She knew that Iroh thought Zuko had to figure that out on his own, but she decided that he needed to hear it and he needed to hear it now.

"That's a matter of the opinion of the person whose honor is at stake." Zuko said before walking off the deck, presumably to his room.

"He will understand someday, Naomi, but not until he is ready. Until then, those words will fall on deaf ears." Iroh said from behind her.

"Yeah, I know, you're right. Who am I kidding?" She laughed, "You're always right. Help me remember that when I need advice." She said as they walked back to the bridge.

Iroh laughed, "I appreciate the compliment. Now, are you still up to come to music night?"

She smiled, "Definitely, who knows, I might even decide to sing. Well, if you guys are alright with the fact that I've never known the whole song."

Iroh laughed again, "Do not worry Naomi, so long as you enjoy yourself, the others will enjoy it too."

* * *

Naomi was having fun, Zuko had mysteriously disappeared sometime after he left the deck and when she had checked his room the broadswords on his wall were gone too, but music night with the crew had made her forget about all of that completely. Most of the songs were just quick instrumental songs for dancing, but Naomi loved it. She felt kind of bad for the poor crewman she had dragged up to dance with her, but hey, she needed to do something to relax for once, it had been a long time since she could just let loose and have fun. Lieutenant Jee was up next, or rather when the last song ended he volunteered to go next. The music started off slow and Naomi let the crewman sit down again, having a feeling this wasn't going to be a dancing song, and even if it was, she didn't slow dance.

_"Winter, spring, summer and fall._

_Winter, spring, summer and fall._

_Four seasons, four loves._

_Four seasons, for love."_

And the song continued, mainly repeating those verses, but Naomi liked it, the rhythm was nice to listen to.

"Naomi, how about you go next?" Iroh asked when Lieutenant Jee had finished. "That is if you still want to of course." He added graciously.

"Yeah, I still want to go. Just a warning though, my aunt always sang this song to my cousins and I and she always forgot one part and just replaced with saying she couldn't remember, so I kinda have to sing it like that too." She said sheepishly.

No one seemed bothered by it, Jee, who had taken up his instrument again asked, "What kind of tune do you need?" She gave him an example and he started playing. She took a deep breath.

_"Two lovers,_

_ forbidden from one another_

_a war divides their people_

_and a mountain divides them apart._

_Built a path to be together,_

This is where I don't know the next couple lines, but then it goes…

_Secret tunnel_

_Secret tunnel_

_Through the mountain,_

_Secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel."_

At the end she gave a small bow. They applauded as they had done for Jee.

"That was very nice, Naomi, do you know what that song was about?" Iroh asked curiously.

"No," she shook her head, "my aunt always said she heard it from some travelling musicians who went through her town once, back before she met my uncle." She said with a shrug.

"Well, either way, you did very well. Now maybe you won't automatically decline my invitations to music night anymore."

She laughed, "No, I don't suppose I will." They continued playing music for another hour at least, and the rest of them probably continued, but at that point Naomi turned in, she was beat. Only just before she fell asleep did she remember that Zuko had disappeared during the day, but her mind was too fogged with sleep to think too much about it.

* * *

"He's been gone all night hasn't he?" Naomi asked Iroh as he waited on the deck for Zuko, whom they had seen coming from the bridge.

Iroh stopped in his tsungi horn playing for a moment to answer her. "Yes, but I think he was doing what he thought was the best option."

"That's not the-ugh you know what, never mind, I'm going to my room." She walked back down below deck, but she decided she had to know what Zuko was doing, so she stopped just within hearing distance of Iroh.

"Prince Zuko, where have you been? You missed music night. Lieutenant Jee sang a stirring love song and Naomi actually sang one as well." Iroh called cheerily as Zuko walked by him.

"I'm going to bed. No disturbances." Was Zuko's only reply as he walked down the hallway towards her.

"Did you at least use them well?" She asked when he was within hearing distance, remembering that while he was gone, so were the broadswords that he had displayed on his wall, the same ones he had trained with.

"What are you talking about?" He said, apparently interested enough not to snap at her, even as he held his head.

"The broadswords. They were oh so strangely missing from your room. Did you use them well?"

"Are you always this sarcastic?"

"Only when I'm in some kind of a good mood, now just answer the question." Though she noticed that she had been sarcastic more and more lately, she chose to ignore it at the moment and focus on the matter at hand.

"Yes, I did." He said softly.

"Good." She said before walking towards her room. "Because I wouldn't want to be responsible for training someone intent on doing terrible things."

She left him confused in the hallway, though he blamed it on his headache and went to sleep it off.

* * *

**I'm sorry this took so long, life is hard and time consuming. Add in school and projects and the need for sleep… yeah anyway, sorry and the next update should be sooner, I have Spring Break soon and I plan on doing LOTS of writing.**

**Reviews:**

**Sunflower13: Normally you would be right, she wouldn't know that much about the Fire Nation, except that Iroh told her about Agni Kais and Zuko's Agni Kai back in chapter 6. Yeah, I know, sorry about the word wall but I think it all needed to be said since Naomi tends to ramble and I figure once she starts telling a story that hurts her, she would try to get it all out at once.**

**Redshoes07: Thank you, for both of your reviews :)**

**Spiderninjapirate22: Yes, I gave a reader feels! (I'm just going to assume they were good feels and if they weren't, sorry). Don't worry, they'll get together eventually ;)**

**Luv2read: Thank you, hope you enjoyed this one too.**

**Why: I looked into this when I got your review (mainly because if I was wrong I wanted to correct it) and there is a type of broadsword called a shuang dao or double broadsword. They are broadswords meant to be held one in each hand. You would be right in the respect that there are broadswords meant to be single and wielded alone, these are both different variations of broadswords. I probably should have specified what kind they were.**

**Mysterious Person: Thank you so much!**


	13. Book 1: Water: Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: Well, let's see, I'm writing Avatar fanfiction; does that look to you like I own it? No? Didn't think so.**

* * *

**"Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?" **

**-George Bernard Shaw**

* * *

Naomi had to admit, after weeks and weeks of chasing Aang, Sokka and Katara around the world, it felt good to get back to some semblance of the normal routine on the ship. Tea with Iroh was one of her favorite parts of the day. His too it seemed, though that may have just been because of the tea.

"See, Prince Zuko?" Iroh addressed Zuko, who had been reluctant to go back to a normal routine. "A moment of quiet is good for your mental well-being."

Zuko accepted the proffered tea only to have it spill all over him as soon as he tried to drink it because of a lurch on the ship. Naomi had to stifle a giggle so as not to end up doing the same to herself. Zuko wiped the tea off his face and went to find out what was happening on his ship.

As soon as he left the room, Naomi lost it. "Did you see—his face?—He's never going to—listen to you about—tea again, Iroh!" She said in breaks in her laughter.

"Yes, I doubt he will." Iroh said, chuckling some as well. "Come, we should go and find out what is causing such a commotion on the deck." He gestured for her to follow him. She heard it then, she didn't know how she had managed to miss it before, the crew's shouts of alarm from the deck.

Well, a giant…creature with a woman on its back climbing up the side of the ship was not what she was expecting. Angry Earth Kingdom soldiers attacking, angry villagers attacking, even an angry Avatar attacking, basically angry _anyone_ attacking, those she would have expected, but this, this was just random, even by their standards.

"Get back! We're after a stowaway." The woman called as her beast made its way fully onto the deck and started sniffing around.

"There are no stowaways on my ship." Zuko said, stepping towards the woman and her beast, Iroh doing the same. Naomi decided it was probably in her best interest to stay back behind them; there was no way she would be able to fight an animal that was probably more than five times her size and weight with hand-to-hand combat, not to mention the claws and teeth that thing was armed with, and it wasn't worth angering Zuko by using her bending.

The animal then went about using those teeth to _rip part of the deck away _and threw it towards them. All of them ducked, good reflexes from bending training she supposed. The beast had stuck its entire face into the hole it had created and looked like it was sniffing for something when she glanced up again. Not long after, a man in Earth Kingdom rags came scrambling out of the hole and tried to make a run for it. He didn't make it. The animal shot its tongue out and hit the man, causing him to fall to a stop in front of them. The weird part was that he didn't get up.

"He's paralyzed." Zuko realized. What in Spirit's name _was_ that creature?

"Only temporarily." The woman said as she grabbed the man. "The toxins will wear off in about an hour, but by then he'll be in jail and I'll have my money."

"But how did you find him on my ship?" Zuko demanded.

"Yes, how _did_ you find him on our 'stowaway free' ship?" Naomi added with a sarcastic look at Zuko, snapping out of her daze from the creature's impressive display. She really loved proving him wrong.

"I like you." The woman said pointing to Naomi. "As to how, my shirshu can smell a rat a continent away." She patted the animal's side in a gesture that was both loving and proud.

"Well, I'm impressed." Iroh said as she rode away. "Very impressed."

"Why do I get the disturbing feeling that you're talking more about her than her, shirshu was it?" Naomi asked him with an accusatory glare.

"I have no idea what you are talking about Naomi." Iroh said completely innocently. "And yes, she did say it was called a shirshu." Zuko just glared at the pair of them.

"Something the matter, Zuko?" Now it was Naomi's turn to act innocent.

"Yes! That woman, whoever she was, tore up my ship! We can't afford to waste any more time!"

"Well, at least she wasn't looking for a rat we had on board, she would have found us anywhere." Naomi teased. She really didn't see what the big deal was. Okay, yes it was rude, but it's not like they couldn't afford to fix the damages and they had no idea where Aang _was_ so they couldn't really be getting anymore behind… well technically.

"That's it." Zuko said, suddenly more inspired than mad.

"What's it?" Naomi asked cautiously, she didn't like that look, that look usually meant…

"That's how I'm going to find the Avatar."

Yep, that's what it meant. 'Great, so much for getting back to the normal routine.'

* * *

"I'm coming."

"No you're not." Well, this conversation seemed familiar. Why couldn't he ever just agree to let her go? Was it really that hard?

"While I don't like this, it was technically my idea and _I'm coming_."

"Honestly, nephew, what's the harm in letting Naomi come? It has been a while since she was off the ship." She was really glad Iroh was on her side.

"Exactly and the last time I left the ship, I actually helped you, so come on, let me come."

Zuko sighed, "Neither of you are going to stop until I agree are you?"

"Nope." She popped the 'p' and shared a smile with Iroh, Zuko was finally catching on.

"Fine, come on, we need to figure out where she is."

* * *

They ended up outside of some Earth Kingdom tavern that was overflowing with drunken yells from its occupants. The shirshu was tied up out front, that was the only thing that convinced Naomi to go in.

Zuko just pushed people aside to find the woman and Iroh followed directly in his wake, apologizing, but Naomi, while she was strong, couldn't make all of them move, they were too closely packed and Iroh and Zuko were moving much faster than her. She fell behind quickly. Eventually it looked as if she was all alone in the overcrowded bar, and of course, some drunken idiot decided to take advantage of that.

"Hey, girly, what're ya doin' in here all 'lone?" He asked, his speech slurred slightly from his drink. She didn't even bother giving him a response, just tried to push past him, but all the people surrounding them made her efforts useless. The only effect was a change in the man's mood. "I asked you a question, little girl." He grabbed her arm and growled threateningly in her ear, or at least it would have been threatening, if he wasn't swaying on the spot.

"And I chose not to answer it. Having trouble taking a hint?" They say you shouldn't anger a drunk person, but… well no one had ever actually said that to Naomi so she was playing by her own rules. She just hoped her rules wouldn't get her beat up, or worse.

"Most ladies see it as flatterin' an they reward me for it." The man continued, despite her rebuffs. Spirits! This guy could change his mood faster than she had seen the Avatar's bison fly.

She shrugged, "Alright, you asked for it." She reached over, grabbed his arm and flipped him backwards, away from her, his weight helping her finally succeed in moving the crowd. He banged his head on the floor and didn't get up. She simply stepped over him, he would wake up in a few minutes, but by then she would likely be gone and he probably wouldn't remember anything anyway. Luckily, that man had seemed to be all that was standing in her way from what was the center of attention, the woman with the shirshu. Iroh and Zuko had found her probably only a short while before she'd gotten there.

"Well, if it isn't my new friends, Angry Boy, Uncle Lazy, and Little Miss Sarcasm, nice entrance by the way, he needed a good pounding." She said as a greeting while still maintaining her ground in her arm wrestling match with a much larger and struggling opponent, of course Iroh and Zuko looked behind Naomi to the guy on the ground. Iroh burst out laughing, but Zuko turned his attention back to the woman just as she beat the enormous man she had been arm wrestling with and money poured down from the spectators who had placed bets.

"Your beast trashed my ship. You have to pay me back."

"I'd love to help you out, but I'm a little short on money." She said as she collected her winnings. "Drinks on me!" She called to the rest of the bar, further showing her lack of care about anything Zuko said.

"Money isn't what I had in mind." Zuko said as he grabbed her arm to stop her from drinking. "Let's talk outside." Surprisingly she agreed. "I need you to find someone." He held up Katara's necklace for her to see.

"Looks like you've already got a girlfriend, Sparky," She gestured to Naomi, "but I wouldn't blame the other one for running off on you. I'm actually surprised this one hasn't yet."

"She's not my girlfriend!" Zuko exclaimed at the same time Naomi shrieked "He's not my boyfriend!" Iroh looked on in amusement; she was so going to hear about this later.

"Besides," Zuko started, in a much calmer tone, "The owner of this necklace isn't the one I'm looking for; it's the bald monk she's traveling with."

"Whatever you lovebirds say." Naomi resisted the urge to earthbend herself a hole in the ground and just let it swallow her up.

Zuko ignored it. "If you find them, I'll consider the damage to my ship paid for." He offered that up as payment. Naomi knew there was no way that would work.

She laughed, "Forget it."

"You like money, what about gold?" Naomi asked as she started to climb up her shirshu. She didn't even know why she was offering, maybe it was because she wanted something to do, maybe she just wanted to get off the ship, but she still found herself saying it.

"Keep talking."

"The damages paid for plus we'll pay you your weight in gold." Iroh offered. Zuko didn't look pleased, but he kept his mouth shut, he didn't want to lose the best chance he's had yet of tracking Aang, all because he couldn't convince her to help.

The woman jumped all the way off her shirshu, "Make it your weight and we got a deal." She pointed to Iroh.

He laughed, "You got it."

She took the necklace out of Zuko's hand and put it in front of the shirshu's nose, "Get on." They all did, and somehow, Naomi was sure it wasn't a coincidence, she ended up between Iroh and Zuko, who had decided it was a good idea to hold on to the saddle as they set off.

"Zuko, you're going to fall off if you don't hold on to me, and I don't know about Iroh but I don't want to have to go looking for the _lost_ Prince of the Fire Nation." She said as she felt the lurching of the shirshu's stride.

Zuko did so, reluctantly, to the notice of their riding companions. Iroh simply smirked and looked away, but the woman was looking at them strangely, completely abandoning steering the shirshu, not that it really needed it.

"What?" Zuko asked aggressively.

"Nothing, just are you two sure there's nothing going on between you?"

"Positive." They both said. Naomi was sure Iroh was still smirking in front of her, but the woman let it be and turned forward again.

"I apologize, miss, but I realize that we don't know who you are or you us." Iroh said politely.

"Name's June, as for you, well, I don't plan on seeing you again so as long as you pay me, no names needed."

Iroh was about to supply her with their names anyway, thankfully Zuko stopped him.

"Uncle, you heard her, she has no need for our names."

* * *

It had taken a few hours, but they had finally reached an inhabited place and the shirshu, Nyla as he was apparently called, seemed intent on sniffing it up. Unfortunately, the only occupants were an old lady with a stick in her hair and a small white cat.

"Out for a bit of fresh air, are we?" The old lady asked when they stopped in front of her. She seemed completely unperturbed by the giant shirshu directly in front of her.

"We're looking for someone." Zuko yelled down to her. The woman looked troubled at his words so Naomi decided to ask her more gently, what harm could an old lady do anyway?

"We just want to know if you can help us find them."

"I hope it's not Miyuki." She said. Naomi was about to shake her head when she started addressing her cat. "Miyuki, did you get in trouble with the Fire Nation again?" The cat just mewed in reply.

"The Avatar's been through here, let's keep moving." June said before striking Nyla with her whip and sending them fast towards another unknown destination. As they left all Naomi could think about was what kind of trouble the _cat_ could have possibly gotten in with the Fire Nation, and apparently on multiple accounts too.

The next time they stopped it was at a fancy building in a small town. Naomi honestly didn't pay much attention as to why Nyla was just circling around in front of that building; she was too busy looking at the strange rock formation that encompassed an entire side of the town's boundaries. She didn't know what could have possibly made it except for earthbenders, well maybe a sculptor, but most likely an earthbender; it was too rugged to be sculpted. 'It was probably built to help protect this town from the war,' she mused.

"Why are we stopping?" Zuko asked after the second time round the building.

"Because the girl must have spent a lot of time here." June replied.

"We have no time for this!" Zuko said, frustrated. He jumped off of Nyla and grabbed Katara's necklace from June's hands. He walked around to the front of the shirshu and pushed the necklace in its face. Naomi turned her attention to the woman standing calmly in front of the building, not wanting to see the disaster she knew was about to happen.

"He is a good match for you, young one." The woman said wisely, gesturing to Zuko.

Naomi's eyes widened. "Oh, no, no, no, we aren't together." She shook her head quickly and even made negative gestures with her hands to further emphasize her point.

"Not yet." The woman said mysteriously. She then turned her attention to Iroh, who was apparently laughing at what had happened to Zuko with Nyla. "Care to hear your fortune, handsome?"

"At my age, there's really only one big surprise left, and I'd just as soon leave it a mystery." Iroh replied, somehow managing to sound wise.

"How come all old people sound wise no matter what they say?" Naomi asked Zuko after he jumped back on Nyla and they lurched forward again. He just shrugged his shoulders before placing his hands on her waist again, purely to stop himself from falling off, she assured herself, she didn't need to be acting like a hormonal teenage girl right now, or ever for that matter.

* * *

There next stop brought them to a courtyard, after breaking down the doors. All of the sisters working around the courtyard started screaming in panic, and who could blame them, the shirshu _was_ huge after all.

"We're getting close." June said after Nyla had sniffed around a bit. She whipped Nyla again and they left the courtyard and set off down a path and into the forest.

When they crashed out onto the path again, it was directly behind Sokka and Katara, who of course started running instantly, though it was really no use. Nyla cornered them against the edge of the path, which sloped up to create a sort of wall.

"So _this_ is your girlfriend. No wonder she left, she's way too pretty for you." June said to Zuko as she looked Katara over. Naomi started to laugh at Zuko, but then she registered what June's words said about her, since she had assumed _she_ was Zuko's girlfriend when they met.

"Hey, wait a minute, what about me?" She was slightly offended at what June seemed to be insinuating.

June shrugged, "You two just seemed to work together."

Zuko jumped off Nyla, completely ignoring their conversation. "Where is he? Where's the Avatar?" He demanded of the Water Tribe siblings.

"We split up he's long gone." Sokka replied aggressively.

"How stupid do you think I am?" Zuko shouted at them.

"Pretty stupid." Sokka and Naomi both said at the same time, though Naomi said it under her breath. "Run!" Sokka yelled, grabbing his sister's hand and heading off in the direction of the abbey. Nyla struck them with his tongue before they made it ten feet. Both siblings fell to the ground with grunts of pain. Naomi winced in sympathy.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Zuko asked, frustrated.

"It's seeking a different scent, perhaps something the Avatar held." June said as Nyla started walking towards Sokka and Katara. The shirshu sniffed at the pack on Sokka's back before a roll of parchment rolled out and it started sniffing that instead. They were about to leave again when Zuko stopped to grab Sokka and Katara.

"What are you doing?" Naomi asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"They may be useful later." Zuko said with a shrug.

"Just don't let them fall off." She said, knowing that she had no way to just make him leave them to wait for the paralysis to wear off.

Once again they broke through the, newly restored, doors of the abbey and caused a panic amongst the sisters. After a few seconds, Nyla started circling around in the center of the abbey, not unlike what he had done in the town, but on a much smaller scale.

"What's it doing?" Zuko asked. "It's just going in a circle."

Naomi rolled her eyes, "You don't say?" Suddenly the shirshu craned its head toward the sky and looked directly at the approaching figure of Aang on his glider. Aang flew right over the shirshu, the tongue missing him by inches, and caused it to fall backwards as it continued to try and hit him. Naturally they all fell off, and of course, Naomi fell on Zuko. 'The spirits must really hate me.' She thought as she quickly got off Zuko and offered him a hand up.

"Aang!" Katara yelled in relief while June went to get the shirshu up again with a crack of her whip. June charged on Nyla towards Aang, only to be knocked off course by Appa, who growled threateningly at them. Aang seemed happy enough with his situation, that is until Zuko approached him, fire spurting from his fists. Naomi wasn't getting involved in this, it wasn't her battle, instead she helped one of the sisters drag Katara and Sokka away from the general commotion at the center of the courtyard. Aang was fighting Zuko while Appa was fighting Nyla and June and everyone kept getting in each other's way and fighting the other person for a time and, well Naomi was following most of it, but she wished she could even the odds, if only a little. Had it been only Zuko, Aang would have been fine, he was really improving as a bender, but add in Nyla and June and things were a lot more complicated for him. 'How can I even the odds? I can't fight, I can't get them a way out of here, all I _can_ do is keep Katara and Sokka from getting hurt over here.' She thought as she looked down at the Water Tribe siblings.

"How you guys doing?" She asked over the sounds of the battle.

"I'm starting to get some feeling back." Sokka said hopefully as he tried to move his arms.

"Hold that thought." She said as she dragged them to the left, out of the path of falling debris from Aang and Zuko's fight, which had moved to the roof. "I'm going to see if one of the sisters can help. Keep working on that feeling." She called as she ducked into one of the halls the sisters had fled to when they had arrived and the fighting had begun. When she entered, some of the sisters screamed and started to run the opposite way; she had forgotten that she had come in with Zuko, they thought she was the enemy. "No, wait, I'm not going to hurt you!" She called out to them. "I just need some help for my friends!" Only one sister stopped, the eldest and clearly the one in charge.

"Which friends?" She asked suspiciously.

"Not the firebenders, the Water Tribe children." She said, yes she called them children, but everyone was probably children to this sister, except maybe Iroh.

"What's wrong with them?" She asked moving towards Naomi.

"The shirshu got them, they can't move at all."

The sister grabbed two bottles of the perfume and handed one to Naomi. "Lead the way." Naomi smiled gratefully and led her to Katara and Sokka, pulling her out of the way of stray debris from the battle. Appa was forcing Zuko to back off of Aang at the moment, but she knew it wouldn't last and she was right, Nyla eventually forced Appa to fall, mostly paralyzed, if not fully.

When they reached Sokka and Katara, they had stood up, but both looked weak and were leaning heavily on the wall. The sister stuck her bottle of perfume under Sokka's nose and Naomi followed suit with Katara. She didn't know what it smelled like, but judging from the looks on their faces, it couldn't have been good, but it did the trick.

"That thing sees with its nose." Sokka stated as he flexed his wrist.

"Yeah, so?" Naomi asked, all that meant was that June was Nyla's eyes.

"So let's give him something to look at." He said with a slight smirk.

"The perfume?" The sister asked.

Naomi eye's widened, "Sokka, you're a genius!"

"But how do we make sure he smells it? It's not like we can walk over there and put it under his nose." Katara protested.

"The perfume has water in it right?" Naomi asked the sister. She nodded. "There's your answer, Katara, _you bend it_."

"Are you sure I can? I mean I've never bent anything except water before and-"

"Katara!" Sokka and Naomi cut her off.

"From what I've seen, you're a talented bender, Katara, you can do this, trust me." Naomi soothed.

"You're not helping, are you?" Katara asked, though she seemed calmer about what she had to do.

"Not with the bending no." She shook her head.

"Come on, we have to hurry." Sokka urged them, obviously done with the technicalities of his plan.

The sister, apparently the Mother Superior, gathered a few other sisters and they helped Naomi and Sokka knock over some of the perfume vats, all with different scents. Once that was done, Katara started bending it and caused it all to come crashing down on Nyla. He went nuts. Zuko got hit with the tongue, June was bucked off and got hit with the tongue, Iroh caught her as she fell, and Naomi narrowly avoided it on her way to sit with Iroh, Zuko and June until the toxins wore off and they would have to chase Nyla down. She was not looking forward to that. Meanwhile, Aang, Katara and Sokka got on Appa to fly away, that was becoming a pattern.

"Uncle? I didn't see you get hit with the tongue." Zuko said weakly to Iroh.

"Shh." Iroh put a finger to his mouth in the universal sign for quiet.

"He didn't." Naomi said with a teasing smile on her face. June's eyes shot open and she glared at him. Naomi only laughed and watched Appa fly away with Aang, Sokka and Katara on his back with a small smile on her face.

"What are you smiling about? We lost." Zuko asked her. She was a little surprised he could see her face from his position but answered him anyway.

"First off, I didn't fight so therefore I didn't lose and second, it just smells really nice." She said with another little laugh. In the back of her mind she registered that she was safe, Zuko seemed to have no idea that she had helped with the perfume at all.

* * *

When they finally found Nyla and got back to the ship and paid June, it was time for goodbyes. Zuko just left for his room or the bridge or somewhere, no one was really surprised that he didn't care. Iroh was kind in his words, but it was clear that June wanted nothing to do with the older man, and really what did he expect, flirting with her like that? Naomi could only wonder. As for her, she honestly couldn't wait to be rid of June, the woman seemed kind enough, in small doses, but Naomi was done with her 'subtle' hints that she and Zuko were a couple. The sooner they separated, the less teasing she would have to endure from Iroh later on.

Their goodbye was quick, an acknowledging nod from Naomi and a handshake, but of course, June couldn't resist one more matchmaking attempt.

"Don't worry, girly, he'll come to his senses sooner or later. I bet the next time we meet he'll be wrapped around your finger." She smirked at the look on Naomi face and Nyla vaulted of the ship.

For once, Naomi wished she was a firebender so that she could let out some frustration the way Zuko did, by breathing fire; that would be helpful right now. But, as she wasn't a firebender, she turned to Iroh instead. He was looking at her with an amused expression.

"Don't start Iroh, I never plan on seeing her again so what she said has no foundations." She said slightly desperately, she knew it, Iroh knew it, the only way it would have been worse was if there were more witnesses. She decided to retreat before she lost even more of her composure. "I'm going to bed; it's been a long day."

* * *

"Whatever makes you happy, Naomi." Iroh said to her retreating form. It was a response to all she had said and he meant it. If she was happy to not give a relationship with Zuko a chance, he would understand, but he didn't think she was. He was confident that she would come to realize that in time. He just hoped it wouldn't be too late.

* * *

Zuko mulled over what had happened that day. He thought about the battle, as was to be expected, but his mind kept going to the journey and the comments from June and the lady in that village. Yeah, he heard it, all of it; he just chose to ignore it in the moment. He had had more pressing matters to attend to. Did that many people really think he was with Naomi? Or that he should be? Would he really mind it if he was? He huffed in frustration. He didn't know. That girl had come into his life and he had kept her there as a means of regaining his honor if the Avatar didn't come back, but he had come back and still, he kept her in his life. He had befriended her, ate with her, sparred with her, he even brought her with him to capture the Avatar for Spirit's sake! But if he even did feel _that_ way about her, what did it matter? She wouldn't feel the same for him, at the end of the day he was her captor and at the end of the day that was probably what she saw him as. Not to mention Mai. Spirits, Mai, he didn't even know where he stood with her when he had been banished, but she was still affecting his decisions! He wasn't even sure if he wanted her to anymore. He let out another huff, this time accompanied by some fire, he needed to stop thinking about this, it would all just drive him insane. 'It's not like a relationship with Naomi was ever even an option, right?'

* * *

**Reviews:**

**Sunflower13: That was actually exactly what I was going for. I laughed so hard when I read this though, just because of the amazing math powers of fangirls.**

**MidnightWolf191: Thank you. Yeah it's the same song.**

**Luv2read: Thank you.**


	14. Book 1: Water: Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: If I owned this…well I don't quite know what I'd do, but I don't own it so I guess it doesn't really matter.**

* * *

**"If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were." **

**― Kahlil Gibran**

* * *

"_Winter, spring, summer and fall._

_Winter, spring, summer and fall._

_Four seasons, four loves._

_Four seasons, for love."_

Naomi stared up at the stars as Iroh sang at music night. She was trying not to think about a certain banished prince who had again decided to stay in his room and the song was, for some reason, not helping at all. She only looked down again when Lieutenant Jee stopped playing with a wrong note. She looked in the direction all the men were looking and saw, to her displeasure, Admiral Zhao.

"Take me to Prince Zuko, we need to have a talk about his crew." He said with a sneer.

* * *

"For the last time, I'm not playing the tsungi horn." Zuko said as Iroh opened his door.

"No, it's about our plans. There is a bit of a problem." Iroh replied, stepping into the room and away from the door so that Zhao could do the same. Naomi had followed, whether Zhao wanted her to or not. She hated him, yes, but she really didn't trust him and her time on the ship was almost up anyway, a day or two, so she would be willing to break her promise a little early if he forced her to.

"I'm taking your crew." Zhao announced as he stepped into Zuko's view.

"What?!" Zuko exclaimed as he stood up from his bed and stalked a little towards Zhao. Uh-oh, she could see this turning into another Agni Kai situation and that couldn't end well.

"I've recruited them for a little expedition to the North Pole."

"Uncle, is that true?" Zuko asked, apparently he didn't want to just believe Zhao. Well, she couldn't disagree with him on that but she'd heard him tell the crew already.

"I'm afraid so. He's taking everyone—" Iroh told him, then continued, getting a little teary-eyed, "even the cook."

"Everyone?" Zuko asked again, this time looking at Naomi.

"Everyone in the crew." She replied evenly. Zhao's actual words had been that he had no need for Zuko's "prisoner garbage", but she figured it would be safer not to tell him that. No use having him lose his head in the small metal room below deck on a ship. She preferred not drowning thank you.

"Sorry you won't be there to watch me capture the Avatar, but I can't have you getting in my way again."

Of course, at the mention of Zhao capturing Aang, Zuko lunged at him. Really would he ever learn? "No!" Iroh shouted as he stopped Zuko from attacking Zhao, who had walked over to look at the broadswords hanging on the wall. He actually seemed kind of bothered by them. Zuko seemed worried that he noticed them at all. What was going on?

"I didn't know you were skilled with broadswords, Prince Zuko." He asked in a scarily calm tone as he swung one of the around.

"I'm not." Zuko answered. "They're just decorative, the spoils from when I captured Naomi." Now she was really confused. Those weren't her broadswords. As far as she knew, Zuko had always had them, and they had only been decorative until she started to teach him how to use them. He was very skilled with broadswords, she was quite proud of that actually, so why would he lie?

Admiral Zhao didn't seem too concerned with his answer. "Have you heard of the Blue Spirit, General Iroh?" He continued questioning the Fire Nation royals with the same calm tone.

"Just rumors. I don't think he is real." Iroh replied. Now he'd adopted that calm tone. What did they all know that she didn't? And better yet, why didn't she know?

"He's real, all right. He's a criminal and an enemy of the Fire Nation, but I have a feeling justice will catch up with him soon." He said, the last part seemingly more directed towards Zuko. "General Iroh, the offer to join my mission still stands… if you change your mind."

* * *

"Would you like to come for a walk with me and see the crew off, Naomi?" Iroh asked, peeking into her room.

She looked up from where she was organizing her bag and shook her head. "Sorry, Iroh, you know today's my last day. I'm almost finished packing."

"Oh, yes, right. I had almost forgotten you were not a member of this ship." Iroh said, again getting a little sad.

"Iroh," She gave him an equally sad smile, "as much as I would love to stay with you, and even Zuko, we all have our parts to play in this war and right now mine is helping the Northern Water Tribe as best as I can. I can't do that from here."

Iroh sighed, "Yes, I know." He walked the rest of the way into her room and hugged her. "If I had a daughter, I hope she would have been like you, Naomi, full of determination to do what's right."

She smiled sadly again and hugged him back, "Thank you, Iroh."

"Good luck." He said as he pulled back and left her to her packing.

* * *

"Zuko, can I come in?" Naomi asked as she knocked on his door. When she heard a grunt from the other side of the door that she took as an affirmative answer, she opened it and stepped in. Zuko was meditating in front of a couple candles, making the flames grow and shrink with his breaths. "It's been a year you know." She said quietly, she still remembered what happened the last time he had been surprised ('Or was it angry?') while he was meditating.

"Has it?" He asked calmly, and not that scary calm, just calm. The meditation must be doing wonders.

"Yeah. Remember, our deal said that if you found or captured Aang in a year, I could go with my stuff."

"I remember." He said in an almost dejected tone as he stood up. 'Dejected? Why would he be dejected? I figured he'd be thrilled to be rid of me.' She thought as he walked to the other side of his room, not looking at her. He reached under the bed and pulled out her broadswords and water pouch. "Here, just go." She looked at him confused before taking her effects and leaving the room. 'What was that all about?'

* * *

Naomi sighed. After three hours of searching she had failed to find a single boat that was sailing for the Northern Water Tribe. In fact, according to one fisherman, _no _boats ever sailed for the Northern Water Tribe. The only thing she had managed to find was a place to get a meal and a map showing her which general direction she wanted to go, which was only helpful for knowing which side of the icy tundra to shoot for. The only way she was going to get to the Water Tribe now was if she used her waterbending to propel a raft in that direction. She also didn't have enough money for a raft so that meant she would have to make an ice board and use that instead. 'Well, it might be quicker.' She thought as she made her way to the docks. It was going to take her a few days to get there and as she didn't know when Zhao was going to set out, she needed to leave now. And she would have if it hadn't been for the explosion she heard from down the dock, in the same direction as Zuko's ship. Her eyes widened as she sprinted towards the billowing cloud of smoke and fire.

When she got there, the ship was gone; all that was left was a hunk of scrap floating in the ocean and Iroh standing on the dock looking horrified. "Zuko." He said quietly as he looked down.

"Please tell me he went on a walk with you." Naomi said, fearing the worst. When Iroh shook his head she lost it. 'No, no, no, no, no, this can't be happening.' She thought frantically as she searched the water for any sign of Zuko in the floating debris. 'Not Zuko.' She didn't even notice Iroh doing the same next to her until he cried out.

"There!" He pointed out to a section of the water that was somehow relatively free of debris, and floating face down in the center, was Zuko. Iroh prepared to jump in, but Naomi held him back.

"Let me, the water's too cold." It would be just like the water at the South Pole: not fit for human swimmers. She couldn't let Iroh get hurt too. She took a deep breath and focused on the water. She had to do this right or Zuko would end up smashing into the dock and she had a feeling that wouldn't go over too well with him when he was okay because _he was going to be okay_. She couldn't let herself think any differently right now. She made a swaying motion and moved her hands upward, creating a wave with the water around Zuko and bringing him within reach. She and Iroh quickly pulled him out of the water. She cringed at the injuries on his face.

Iroh placed his head on his chest. "He's not breathing." He said looking up at her. It broke her heart a little at how broken up Iroh looked, then again she probably looked pretty much the same. She took a deep breath again, Iroh was clearly freaking out and she couldn't blame him, Zuko seemed to be the only member of his family who hadn't gone into the deep end and he was about to lose him, but now she needed to be calm for both of them. She placed her hands over Zuko's chest, not touching him, but feeling around with her senses anyway. She focused her energy on finding water inside him, because if it was there, she could get it out and he would probably start breathing again, if it wasn't, well she didn't want to think about that. There! She found it. She used her bending to focus in on the water and gently moved her hands up towards his mouth and pulled the water out, flinging it into the ocean once it was clear. She breathed a sigh of relief when he started coughing. Iroh propped him up and looked at Naomi, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." She said shakily. "I can't heal any other injuries though; healing's not my strong suit." Iroh nodded and then Zuko tried to speak, effectively ending the conversation about her healing abilities or lack thereof.

"P-pirates." He said weakly.

"What?" She asked.

"The pirates, they did this." He repeated, slowly getting louder.

"And I wonder who put them up to it." She said to Iroh, remembering the strange conversation with Zhao. Iroh nodded obviously thinking the same thing.

"What are you doing here, Naomi?" Zuko asked her.

"Prince Zuko, she-" Iroh started to reprimand Zuko but Naomi cut him off.

"It's fine, Iroh. I was just about to leave when I saw the explosion from the ship; I had to make sure you were okay." She said with a shrug. "You scared the crap out of my Flame Head." Now that the danger of him being dead had passed she had calmed down considerably and was regaining her normal attitude.

"Thank you." He said sincerely. She was surprised that he meant it but managed to hide it quickly.

"What, did you think I'd just let you drown?" She asked with a smirk as she moved back from her kneeling position into a crouch, creating a more comfortable distance between them.

Zuko just rolled his eyes before asking her another question. "You're still leaving aren't you?"

She gave him a sad smile, she didn't even know why she was sad about leaving, before she responded. "Yeah, we've all got our jobs to do. Right now, mine's in the North Pole." And she knew he thought his would be to capture Aang or at least get revenge on Zhao. She stood up, she didn't want this to turn into some teary good-bye; she had never been good at those. Iroh's good-bye had been hard enough. "Good-bye, Zuko."

"Bye, Naomi." She walked away knowing that if she waited, she probably wouldn't be able to go. Iroh and Zuko had somehow become her family and she didn't think she could leave a family behind again, not the same way she'd left her real one. 'I'm going to regret this.' She thought as she stopped and turned back towards Iroh and Zuko.

She walked quickly back to them, kneeled down next to Zuko again and kissed him on the cheek, told him, "Good luck.", and turned back and ran to the edge of the dock. She jumped into the water, formed her ice board and started on her way, the whole time trying to ignore the blush that refused to leave her cheeks.

* * *

Iroh looked down at his nephew after Naomi had taken to the water and laughed quietly. Zuko had a shocked look on his face and was holding a hand to his cheek. "Good luck, Naomi." He heard his nephew say quietly.

* * *

**Reviews:**

**Sunflower13: Yes, yes she is and thank you.**

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